5 facts about Martin Luther King Jr.

1. King’s 'I Have a Dream' speech was not his first at the Lincoln Memorial.
Before a crowd estimated at between 15,000 and 30,000, King delivered his first national address on the topic of voting rights.

2. King narrowly escaped an assassination attempt a decade before his death.
A woman stabbed him at his own book signing. 

3. George Washington is the only other American to have had his birthday observed as a national holiday.

4. King was imprisoned nearly 30 times.
According to the King Center, the civil rights leader went to jail 29 times. He was arrested for acts of civil disobedience and on trumped-up charges, such as when he was jailed in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1956 for driving 30 miles per hour in a 25-mile-per-hour zone.

5.  King entered college at the age of 15.
King was such a gifted student that he skipped grades nine and 12 before enrolling in 1944 at Morehouse College.

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."