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Highlight in History
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 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 1912, U.S. Marines landed in Cuba at the order of President William Howard Taft to ensure order and protect U.S. interests.
In 1933, the United States went off the gold standard.
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 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 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 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.
Ten years ago
Fourteen-year-old Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her Salt Lake City home. (Smart was found alive in a Salt Lake suburb in March 2003; her kidnappers, Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee, are serving prison sentences.) A suicide bomber killed 17 Israelis on a bus. Magic Johnson was introduced as a member of the 2002 class elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Dee Dee Ramone, bass player for the pioneer punk band the Ramones, died in Los Angeles at age 50.
Five years ago
Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison for lying and obstructing the CIA leak investigation. (President George W. Bush later commuted the prison sentence.) A fourth suspect in an alleged plot to destroy New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport surrendered to police in Trinidad.
One year ago
The departure of Yemen’s battle-wounded president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, for treatment in Saudi Arabia set off wild street celebrations in the capital. Israeli troops battled hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters who tried to burst across Syria’s frontier with the Golan Heights.
Top News
June 5, 2012



