JUNE 5 — 1968 Bobby Kennedy’s assassination reaches headlines; 1864 Battle of Piedmont; 2016 Greg Vlasek from Sacramento, CA starts rowing to Hawaii; 1944 Pre D-Day
JUNE 5
1968 here are the headlines: Nashville Tennessean: Sen. Kennedy Shot! Dallas Times Herald: RFK Fights For Life. New York Post: Now RFK. Los Angeles Daily Mirror: God! Not Again.
Nothing to see here, folks. Just another Muslim terrorist attack.
Or was it the CIA making it looks like a Muslim terrorist attack? I’ll get to that in a moment.
Although his older brother JFK was assassinated five years earlier, Democratic Senator Robert F. Kennedy was having a great day on June 5th. He had just won the California primary for the 1968 presidential election, and had a great chance against Republican Richard Nixon. 1968 was a tough year for America.
President Lyndon Johnson wouldn’t seek reelection. The country was dealing with a huge anti-war backlash because of what was going on in Vietnam. Martin Luther King had been assassinated. It would appear Kennedy would be the sole politician that could stand up for the Civil rights that King had fought so hard for. Now that he won the California primary, he would be giving a speech at the Ambassador Hotel in L.A. It was around 10 minutes after midnight. L.A. Times reporter Boris Yaro, who was off duty at the time, was hoping to get a picture of Bobby was headed toward a press conference in the Colonial room via shortcut through the kitchen with gold medalist Rafer Johnson and football star Roosevelt Grier.
After Yaro heard gunshots, the cheers turned into screams of chaos and anger. Palestinian refugee Sirhan Sirhan, who was living in Pasadena at the time, had shot and wounded several people with his .22 revolver, and Bobby would succumb to his wounds the next day.
My God, not again, Yaro would recall.
Security guard Bill Barry punched Sirhan in the face, others apprehended him, and the police took him away. Bobby’s wife Ethel, who was in the hotel, rushed to see her husband. Bobby appeared to recognize her, and then lost consciousness. His condition failed to improve, and at 1:44 a.m. on June 6th, Bobby Kennedy was pronounced dead.
It’s generally believed that in an alternate reality where Bobby wasn’t shot, he would’ve become president, ended the Vietnam War earlier, although the fall of Saigon would’ve just happened sooner as well, organized crime would be squeezed out and there would be no Watergate. But in this timeline, Democratic candidate Hubert Humphries lost to Nixon. But did Sirhan act alone? Bobby’s son Robert Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer, certainly doesn’t believe he was.
And what exactly did the CIA have to do with the assassination, a den who was that lady in the polka dot dress who ran out of the kitchen after the shooting? The same type of involvement it had in King’s shooting?
Stay tuned.
1933 – FDR takes United States off fold standard
…aNd congress enacts a joint resolution nullifying the right of creditors to demand payment in gold.
The US had been on a gold standard since 1879, with the exception for an embargo on gold exports during WWI, but bank failures during the Great Depression of the 1930s frightened the public into hoarding gold, making the policy unsustainable.
This is a discussion that could go on for days; some argue that this ended the Great Depression, while others believe that’s got n nothing to do with ending the great depression.
Some believe in Keynesian theories and others believe we should end the Federal Reserve. Yet others became libertarians.
I’ll just leave it at that for now.
In civil war news…
1864 – Union routs Rebels at the battle of Piedmont.
David Hunter for the Union v Grumble5 Jones for the CSA. The result? Yankee victory.
Actually, the first real victory for the Union for the Shenandoah campaign. General Grant had just took over command of Union forces, and directed Franz Sigel in the Battle of new Market. But Sigel got his butt handed to him, and was replaced by Hunter.
After serious fighting, Union Col. Joseph Thoburn’s men struck the flank of Jone’s force, and the Confederate line began falling apart. Jones and his men retreated, but the retreat turned into a rout.
Jones was killed on the way out with a bullet to the head. About 1000 Confederate men including 60 or so officers were captured, and almost 1600 men lost their lives. The Union lost about 850.
The next day, Hunter would march into Staunton, and move on to Lexington, then Lynchburg, destroying military stores along the way.
2016 — Ocean rower Greg Vlasek heads to Hawaii.
From Sacramento California comes Greg Vlasek, who lost his dad, brother and brother in law all within six months of each other.
Worse, he was overweight and turning sixty.
But when the journey from Monterey California to Diamond head Oahu stretches between 2600 and 3000 miles, depending on weather, Vlasek, along with the American River Parkway Foundation and the Hawaiian Legacy Reforestation Initiative, turned into an ocean rowing Boss!
He practiced hard, rowing 5,000 nautical miles in two weeks just to warm up for this voyage. Greg Vlasek and Team Moana Uli, which means the Deep Blue Sea, and his four person team on the Isabel and made its way through the waters.