In today's Friday Know-It-All, Editor Megan takes a deeper dive into a round we ran in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

On Monday in the U.S., we observed Martin Luther King Jr. Day, so we ran a round about some fun facts about Dr. King that you may not have learned in school. For those of you who didn’t play those questions, here’s a rundown of those fun facts:

Thanks to Stevie Wonder’s persistence along with his hit song “Happy Birthday,” Ronald Reagan finally signed Martin Luther King Jr. Day into law. Dr. King is the only non-president whose birthday is a federal holiday.
He began attending Atlanta’s Morehouse College at the age of 15. It was there that he was introduced to Henry David Thoreau’s “Essay on Civil Disobedience.”
In 1971, Dr. King posthumously won a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Recording for his controversial “Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam” speech.
Dr. King and his family were huge Trekkies. He told Uhura actor Nichelle Nichols that “Star Trek” was the only show that he and Coretta would let their kids stay up past their bedtime to watch.
In 1967, Martin and Coretta Scott King paid the hospital bill for their friend’s birth. That baby is now a world-famous celebrity. Read on to get the full scoop!

In 2022, a clip of a Gayle King (no relation) interview in which Julia Roberts discusses the details of her birth went viral. Here’s the story: Julia’s parents, Betty and Walter Roberts, ran The Actors and Writers Workshop, a theater school in Atlanta with the city's only integrated theater group for kids. As Julia explains, “One day Coretta Scott King called my mother and asked if her kids could be part of the school, 'cause they were having a hard time finding a place that would accept her kids, and my mom was like, ‘Sure come on over.’” The King children attended theater classes for a number of years, so naturally Martin and Coretta became friends with Betty and Walter.

When it came time for Betty to give birth to their daughter Julia in 1967, the couple couldn't afford their hospital bill. As Julia puts it, the Kings “helped us out of a jam” and paid the bill for their friends.

Martin and Coretta’s eldest, Yolanda King, went on to become an activist and actor. In a 2001 conversation with CNN, she reminisced about Walter: “Mr. Roberts was so imposing,” she said. “I loved him, but I was also a little intimidated by him, too. I mean, he taught me so much — he and Mrs. Roberts — about the work, and just about living and being really open, grabbing life and making the best of it.”’

When the interview clip went viral, Yolanda’s youngest sibling Bernice King tweeted:

“Grateful that #JuliaRoberts shared this story with @GayleKing and that so many people have been awed by it. I know the story well, but it is moving for me to be reminded of my parents’ generosity and influence.”