JUNE 5

On this date in 1968, an event occurred that may have significantly altered the course of history. Robert F. Kennedy was shot while campaigning for the presidency in California.  He died the next day.

Bobby Kennedy had served as Attorney General when his brother, John F. Kennedy, was president. After JFK was assassinated and Johnson became president, RFK resigned and successfully ran for U.S. Senator from New York.
 
1968 was an election year.  Linden B. Johnson was the incumbent president but at the end of March that year, he shocked the world when he announced that he would not run or accept the nomination. R.F. Kennedy jumped in to oppose Hubert H. Humphrey, Johnson's VP, who was also seeking the nomination.

The Vietnam War was raging.  Kennedy was very critical of Johnson's handling of the war. Humphrey would probably have continued LBJ's tactics and Nixon was somewhat of a hawk on the war.  The assassination of RFK took a contrarian voice out of the picture.

Many think that Robert would have won his party's nomination and defeated Nixon in the general election.  We'll never know.

It was a sad day, forty-nine years ago today.
😞