Today is Friday, June 5, the 157th day of 2020. There are 209 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On June 5, 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.
On this date:
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 Reagan, the 40th president of the United States, died in Los Angeles at age 93 after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease.
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.
Today’s Birthdays: Actor-singer Bill Hayes is 95. Broadcast journalist Bill Moyers is 86. Former Canadian Prime Minister Joe Clark is 81. Author Dame Margaret Drabble is 81. Country singer Don Reid (The Statler Brothers) is 75. Rock musician Freddie Stone (AKA Freddie Stewart) (Sly and the Family Stone) is 73. Rock singer Laurie Anderson is 73. Country singer Gail Davies is 72. Author Ken Follett is 71. Financial guru Suze Orman is 69. Jazz musician Kenny G is 64. Rock singer Richard Butler (Psychedelic Furs) is 64. Actress Beth Hall is 62. Actor Jeff Garlin is 58. Actor Mark Wahlberg is 49.
Thought for Today: “What is objectionable, what is dangerous, about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents.” — Robert F. Kennedy, U.S. senator (1925-1968).
