TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS FRIDAY, JUNE 5, the 157th day of 2020. There are 209 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:

On this date in 1968, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was shot and mortally wounded at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after claiming victory in California’s Democratic presidential primary; assassin Sirhan Bishara Sirhan was arrested at the scene.

In 1794, Congress passed the Neutrality Act, which prohibited Americans from taking part in any military action against a country that was at peace with the United States.

In 1933, the United States went off the gold standard.

In 1950, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Henderson v. United States, struck down racially segregated railroad dining cars.

In 1967, war erupted in the Middle East as Israel, anticipating a possible attack by its Arab neighbors, launched a series of pre-emptive airfield strikes that destroyed nearly the entire Egyptian air force; Syria, Jordan and Iraq immediately entered the conflict.

In 1981, the Centers for Disease Control reported that five homosexuals in Los Angeles had come down with a rare kind of pneumonia; they were the first recognized cases of what later became known as AIDS.

In 1999, jazz and pop singer Mel Torme died in Los Angeles at age 73. In 2002, 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her Salt Lake City home. (Smart was found alive by police in a Salt Lake suburb in March 2003. One kidnapper, Brian David Mitchell, is serving a prison sentence; the other, Wanda Barzee, was released in September 2018.)

In 2004, Ronald Wilson Reagan, the 40th president of the United States, died in Los Angeles at age 93 after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease.

In 2013, U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians, many of them sleeping women and children, pleaded guilty to murder at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, to avoid the death penalty; he was sentenced to life in prison.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:

Actor-singer Bill Hayes is 95. Broadcast journalist Bill Moyers is 86. Country singer Gail Davies is 72. Author Ken Follett is 71. Financial guru Suze Orman is 69. Rock musician Nicko McBrain (Iron Maiden) is 68. Jazz musician Kenny G and rock singer Richard Butler (Psychedelic Furs) are 64. Singer Brian McKnight is 51. Actor Mark Wahlberg is 49. Actor Chad Allen and rock musician P-Nut (311) are 46. Actresses Navi Rawat and Liza Weil are 43. Rock musician Pete Wentz (Fall Out Boy) is 41. Actress Chelsey Crisp is 37. Actress Amanda Crew is 34. Electronic musician Harrison Mills (Odesza) is 31. Actor Hank Greenspan is ten.