This Day in History

On June 5, 1968, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was shot and mortally wounded after claiming victory in Califor- nia’s Democratic presidential primary at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles; assassin Sirhan Bishara Sirhan was ar- rested at the scene.

On this date:

In 1794, Congress passed the Neutrality Act, which pro- hibited Americans from tak- ing part in any military action against a country that was at peace with the United States.

In 1912, U.S. Marines land- ed in Cuba at the order of Pres- ident William Howard Taft to ensure order and protect U.S. interests.

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, antici- pating 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 immedi- ately entered the conflict.

In 1981, the Centers for Disease Control reported that five homosexuals in Los An- geles 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 Ange- les at age 73.

In 2002, 14-year-old Eliz- abeth Smart was abducted from her Salt Lake City home. (Smart was found alive by po- lice 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 dis- ease.

In 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.

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