Happy Birthday Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Today we celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. In honor of the holiday, we thought we’d bring you five facts about the civil rights leader.

1. You Need to Know About His Birthday: His birthday was actually Jan. 15. He was born in 1929 in Atlanta.
2. You Need to Know About His Name Change: King and his father were both originally named Michael King. However, after a visit to Germany in 1934, King’s father changed both their names to Martin in honor of the Protestant leader Martin Luther.
3. You Need to Know About His First 15 Minutes of Fame: King sang in the choir at the Atlanta movie premiere of Gone With the Wind in 1939.
4. You Need to Know About His Brain Power: King skipped ninth and 12th grade math in high school. He started at Morehead College at age 15, without having formally graduated from high school.
5. You Need to Know About His Holiday: President Ronald Reagan signed Martin Luther King Day as a holiday into law in 1983, and it was observed for the first time on Jan. 20, 1986. The first time all 50 states celebrated the holiday was in 2000.