Robert F. Kennedy Is Assassinated; US Declares War On Three Axis Powers Affiliates: Today In History

June 5, 2017, is the 156th day of the year, with 209 days remaining. The moon is in a waxing gibbous phase, with illumination at 86 percent, becoming more illuminated each day until the full moon on June 9.

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United States declares war on Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania

Three years deep into the belly of the beast that was World War II, the United States, under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, declared war on Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania, three affiliate nations of the Axis powers.

It was 1942. By June, 26 allied countries had signed the Declaration by United Nations during the Arcadia Conference, the basis of the United Nations (UN) founded in 1945. Roosevelt had signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the U.S. military to define areas as exclusionary zones, clearing the way for the incarceration of Japanese Americans, German Americans and Italian Americans to American concentration camps. More than 24,000 sick and starving American and Filipino troops were trapped on the Bataan Peninsula in the Central Luzon region of the Philippines, with Japanese forces beginning an all-out assault on such soldiers. And the Women’s Arms Corps had been signed into law.

By June 5, things were only heating up.

The assassination of Robert F. Kennedy

Robert Francis “Bobby” Kennedy, or RFK, younger brother of President John F. Kennedy, served as the U.S. attorney general from 1961 to 1964, beginning after his brother was elected president, and as a U.S. senator from New York from 1965 to 1968. Like his brother, RFK was a Harvard University graduate. He fought organized crime and worked for civil rights for African Americans and was a committed advocate of the poor and of racial minorities. He was also a close advisor to JFK.

On June 5, 1968, while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination in Los Angeles, RFK was shot. He died early the next day at age 42. A father of 11 children, RFK was buried at Virginia’s Arlington National Cemetery near the grave of his brother.

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Photo credit: Library of Congress