75-71: The Challenger Disaster

June 5th, 1968, America was already teetering on the brink.

The Vietnam War was raging.

President Lyndon B. Johnson had shockingly abandoned his re-election bid, and racial unrest had ignited cities across the country.

Stepping into the chaotic dash for the Democratic nomination was Senator Robert F. Kennedy, building a coalition of working-class Americans, minorities, and anti-war youth who saw him as a leader capable of healing a fractured nation.

Just minutes after delivering a crucial victory speech in the California Democratic primary, Kennedy was leaving the Embassy Ballroom at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

To avoid crowds, he was escorted through a crowded kitchen pantry.

In the chaos, 24-year-old Sirhan Sirhan stepped forward with a .22 caliber revolver and opened fire at point-blank range.

[gunshots] Sirhan, a Palestinian immigrant, targeted Kennedy over his vocal support for Israel in the Six-Day War.

He carried out the attack on that conflict's exact anniversary date.

Kennedy was hit three times, critically wounded as hotel workers and aides desperately held down the gunman.

It was a devastating blow to a nation still reeling, coming just two months after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and five years after his brother John was killed in Dallas.

RFK died 26 hours later.

This plunged the Democratic Party into a chaotic convention in Chicago that summer.

Kennedy's death stole the hopes of millions who saw him as America's unifying force, narrowing a traumatic year and prompting Congress to immediately extend Secret Service protection to all major presidential candidates.

74.

June 5th, 1968, America was already teetering on the brink.

The Vietnam War was raging.

President Lyndon B. Johnson had shockingly abandoned his re-election bid, and racial unrest had ignited cities across the country.

Stepping into the chaotic dash for the Democratic nomination was Senator Robert F. Kennedy, building a coalition of working-class Americans, minorities, and anti-war youth who saw him as a leader capable of healing a fractured nation.

Just minutes after delivering a crucial victory speech in the California Democratic primary, Kennedy was leaving the Embassy Ballroom at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

To avoid crowds, he was escorted through a crowded kitchen pantry.

In the chaos, 24-year-old Sirhan Sirhan stepped forward with a .22 caliber revolver and opened fire at point-blank range.

[gunshots] Sirhan, a Palestinian immigrant, targeted Kennedy over his vocal support for Israel in the Six-Day War.

He carried out the attack on that conflict's exact anniversary date.

Kennedy was hit three times, critically wounded as hotel workers and aides desperately held down the gunman.

It was a devastating blow to a nation still reeling, coming just two months after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and five years after his brother John was killed in Dallas.

RFK died 26 hours later.

This plunged the Democratic Party into a chaotic convention in Chicago that summer.

Kennedy's death stole the hopes of millions who saw him as America's unifying force, narrowing a traumatic year and prompting Congress to immediately extend Secret Service protection to all major presidential candidates.

74.