TODAY IN HISTORY

SUNDAY JUN 5, 2022

1968

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

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.

1950

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

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.

1975

Egypt reopened the Suez Canal to international shipping, eight years after it was closed because of the 1967 war with Israel.

1976

14 people were killed when the Teton Dam in Idaho burst.

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.

2002

14-year-old Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her Salt Lake City home.

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.

2006

More than 50 National Guardsmen from Utah became the first unit to work along the U.S.-Mexico border as part of President George W. Bush’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

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.

2020

Minneapolis banned chokeholds by police, the first of many changes in police practices to be announced in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death; officers would also now be required to intervene any time they saw unauthorized force by another officer. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the league had been wrong for not listening to players fighting for racial equality.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Actor-singer Bill Hayes is 97. Broadcast journalist Bill Moyers is 88. Former Canadian Prime Minister Joe Clark is 83. Author Dame Margaret Drabble is 83. Country singer Don Reid (The Statler Brothers) is 77. Rock musician Freddie Stone (AKA Freddie Stewart) (Sly and the Family Stone) is 75. Rock singer Laurie Anderson is 75. Country singer Gail Davies is 74. Author Ken Follett is 73. Financial guru Suze Orman is 71.