Today is Saturday, June 5, the 156th day of 2010. There are 209 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
On June 5, 1968, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel after claiming victory in California’s Democratic presidential primary. Gunman Sirhan Bishara Sirhan was immediately arrested.
ON THIS DATE
In 1884, Civil War hero General William T. Sherman refused the Republican presidential nomination, saying, “I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected.”
In 1910, author William Sydney Porter, who’d written short stories under the pen name “O. Henry,” died in New York at 47.
In 1916, the Arab Revolt against Turkish Ottoman rule began during World War I.
In 1933, the United States went off the gold standard.
In 1940, during the World War II Battle of France, Germany attacked French forces along the Somme line.
In 1947, Secretary of State George C. Marshall gave a speech at Harvard University in which he outlined an aid program for Europe that came to be known as The Marshall Plan.
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 Mideast as Israel raided military aircraft parked on the ground in Egypt; Syria, Jordan and Iraq entered the conflict.
In 1976, 14 people were killed when the Teton Dam in Idaho burst.
In 2000, President Bill Clinton visited the former Soviet republic of Ukraine, the last stop in his weeklong European tour, where he dispensed $80 million in American aid to help entomb the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, scene of the world’s worst nuclear accident. Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of obstruction of justice under an agreement that dropped murder charges in the stabbing deaths of two men outside a Super Bowl party in Atlanta. (Lewis, who testified at the trial of two former co-defendants, was sentenced to a year of probation; the defendants were acquitted of murder and assault.)
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 2005, “Monty Python’s Spamalot” won three Tony Awards, including best musical.
Associated Press
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