John Wayne (Marion Robert Morrison)
(May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979)
On April 23, 1969, Sirhan Sirhan was given the death penalty
after being convicted in the assassination of senator Robert
F. Kennedy. In 1972, Sirhan’s sentence was commuted to life
in prison after California abolished the death penalty. He
turned 80 last month.
Sen. Robert F. Kennedy speaks his final words to supporters
at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, moments before
he was shot on June 5, 1968. At his side are his wife, Ethel,
left.
Robert F. Kennedy lies mortally wounded on the floor immediately after the shooting. Kneeling beside him
is 17-year-old busboy Juan Romero, who was
shaking Kennedy’s hand when Sirhan Sirhan fired
the shots.
Private Eddie Slovik is the only American military serviceman
executed for desertion (during World War II) since the American
Civil War.
In August of 1944, as he and a companion were on the way to the
front lines, they became lost in the chaos of battle and stumbled
upon a Canadian unit that took them in.
When he returned to his unit in October, he signed a confession
of desertion, claiming he would run away again if forced to fight,
and submitted it to an officer of the 28th. The officer advised
Slovik to take the confession back, as the consequences were
serious. Slovik refused and was confined to the stockade.
A legal officer of the 28th offered Slovik a deal: dive into combat immediately and avoid the court-martial. Slovik refused. He was
tried on November 11 for desertion and was convicted in less
than two hours. The nine-officer court-martial panel passed a
unanimous sentence of execution, “to be shot to death with
musketry.”
Eisenhower upheld the death sentence and Slovik was shot and
killed by a 12-man firing squad in eastern France.
Wedding photo, 1942.
The Execution of Private Slovik is a made-
for-TV movie starring Martin Sheen, it
premiered March 13, 1974 on NBC.
James Wilson Marshall
(October 8, 1810 – August 10, 1885)
The caption with this photo at the Library of Congress
claims that this was Marshall in front of the mill in 1850.
On January 24, 1848, gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill on
the American River in Northern California. After James W.
Marshall, who’d been overseeing the sawmill’s construction,
found the gold nuggets he and his boss, John Sutter,
attempted to keep
the discovery a secret. However, word soon spread and by
1849 thousands of prospectors, who became known as 49ers,
were flocking to Coloma, California, site of Sutter’s Mill, and
the surrounding region, hoping to strike it rich.
James Marshall’s cabin.
John Augustus Sutter
(February 23, 1803 – June 18, 1880)
The spot where Marshall first discovered the gold that
started the California Gold Rush.