Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy

On June 5, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy was shot by 24-year-old Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California. Medical teams attempted to treat him, but he died the following day at the age of 42.

Kennedy, a United States senator and candidate in the 1968 Democratic Party presidential primaries, won the California and South Dakota primaries on June 4. He addressed his campaign supporters in the Ambassador Hotel's Embassy Ballroom. After leaving the podium, and exiting through a kitchen hallway, he was mortally wounded by multiple shots fired by Sirhan. Kennedy died at Good Samaritan Hospital nearly 25 hours later. His body was returned to the East and buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Sirhan, a Palestinian Christian who held strong anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian beliefs, testified at trial in 1969 that he killed Kennedy "with 20 years of malice aforethought"; he was convicted and sentenced to death. Due to People v. Anderson, his sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1972 with a possibility of parole. His parole request has been denied numerous times. Kennedy's assassination prompted the U.S. Secret Service to extend their security to protect presidential candidates. Numerous conspiracy theories arose related to Kennedy's murder.

The assassination was one of several that murdered major political figures in the 1960s in the United States. Others include the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy (elder brother of Robert F. Kennedy) in 1963, Malcolm X in 1965, and Martin Luther King Jr. in April 1968.