Things You Didn’t Know About Martin Luther King Jr.

Did you know that Martin Luther King Jr. was a huge Trekkie or that Martin was not his birth name? Check out some more things you didn't know about MLK Jr.

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MLK Jr. was a huge "Star Trek" nerd. In 1966, he met Nichelle Nichols, who played Lieutenant Uhura, and described himself as, "the biggest Trekkie on the planet."
He skipped two grades in high school. He went to college at 15, and graduated with a degree in sociology at 19.
Martin Luther King Day wasn't celebrated in all 50 states until the year 2000. It became an official holiday in 1982, but Virginia, Utah, and South Carolina didn't recognize it until 15 years ago.
Today is not Martin Luther King's birthday. We're celebrating his birthday. But he was actually born on January 15th, which was last Thursday, he'd be 86 this year. Martin Luther King Day is always the third Monday of January.
He was the youngest person to ever win the Nobel Peace Prize when he won it in 1964 at the age of 35. But now he's sixth on that list. The youngest is Malala Yousafzai, who won it last year at age 17.
Martin Luther King Jr. was right-handed. If you do a Google Image search for "Martin Luther King taking notes", there are a bunch of pictures of him using his right hand.
Martin wasn't his birth name, it was Michael. He was born Michael King Jr. He changed it after his dad changed his name from Michael to Martin Luther in 1934.
The full "I Have a Dream" speech is 17 minutes long. Here's the full speech.
He wrote it over the course of several months while he was staying at a hotel in Los Angeles.
Martin Luther King beat out Bill Cosby for a Grammy in 1971. He won Best Spoken Word Album three years after he died, for a speech he gave in 1967 called, "Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam". Cosby was nominated the same year for a spoken word thing he did called "Grover Henson Feels Forgotten".