On this Day...

June 5

• In 1968, Robert Kennedy was shot. In the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, JFK`s younger brother Robert had just finished a victory speech after winning the California primary when he was shot down with three bullets, allegedly from the gun of 24-year old Jordanian Sirhan Bishara Sirhan. He died in the early hours of the next morning, five bystanders were injured. Ten bullets were recovered, yet Sirhan`s gun fired only eight shots. Where the other two came from has never been explained. The fatal bullet may have been fired by a security guard, and a mysterious woman suspect questioned afterwards later committed suicide. Sirhan was sentenced to death, but the California death sentence was abolished shortly afterwards. To this day he insists he cannot remember pulling his gun or using it.

• In 1967, the Six-Day War began, launched by Israel after Egypt`s Gamel Abdel Nasser had ordered U.N. peace-keeping force to evacuate the Sinai. It started with a lightning air strike, followed by tank and infantry attacks, and when it was all over, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan were vanquished,15,000 Arabs lay dead, and Israel had occupied the Sinai, the West Bank, Old Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights, enlarging its territory, five times over. So swift was the first Israel attack that 300 Egyptian planes were destroyed by nightfall, most of them on the ground.

— from Today’s the Day! by Jeremy Beadle (Signet)