Robert F. Kennedy was murdered on June 5, 1968, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Following dual victories in California and South Dakota, he spoke to journalists and the crowd. A 24-year-old Sirhan Sirhan shot him multiple times with a handgun. Kennedy died in the Good Samaritan Hospital 26 hours later. His body was taken to New York City for a funeral mass in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. He was transported by a private funeral train from New York to Washington, D.C., where thousands of people lined the track to watch and pay their respect.
A year later, Sirhan Sirhan was convicted of murdering the senator and sentenced to death. His sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1972.
1968 was a tragic year in American history. Martin Luther King Jr. was also assassinated in April. President Lyndon B. Johnson decided not to seek a second term in the upcoming presidential election. Robert Kennedy stepped into this breach and got massive public support. He was perceived by many to be the only person in American politics capable of uniting the people. After the California victory, Kennedy was hoping for the Democratic nomination against Richard Nixon in the upcoming election. However, he was assassinated, and Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey lost to Nixon.
Here below are some photographs that show the assassination and its aftermath.
