Robert F. Kennedy died in the early hours of June 6, 1968, roughly 26 hours after being shot in a hotel pantry moments after declaring victory in the California presidential primary. His assassination, coming less than five years after his brother John's and two months after Martin Luther King Jr.'s, plunged an already turbulent America deeper into grief and political uncertainty.
Kennedy had just finished his victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel and was cutting through the kitchen pantry toward a press conference when Sirhan Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian immigrant, opened fire with a .22 revolver. Kennedy fell near a soft drink cooler; busboy Juan Romero knelt beside him, cradling his head—a photograph of the moment became one of the era's defining images.
Surgeons at Good Samaritan Hospital worked for hours to remove bullet fragments from his brain, but he never regained consciousness. His death was announced at 1:44 a.m. He was 42 years old.
His body was carried by train from New York to Washington for burial near his brother at Arlington National Cemetery, and hundreds of thousands lined the tracks to watch it pass. The assassination triggered the passage of stricter gun control debates and left the Democratic Party's 1968 nomination fight—and America's sense of its own stability—shattered.
Key people: Robert F. Kennedy, Sirhan Sirhan