I have long maintained that had Dan White killed only Mayor Moscone, and not Harvey as well, he would have gone to the gas chamber.

Aside: The chair of the Board of Supervisors at the time was a political neophyte named Dianne Feinstein. So White's bullets also unleashed her on California.

and committed suicide. Nobody ever let him forget what he did.

Dan White shot Moscone over White's financial and job situation, while poor Harvey Milk was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time.

he put an exhaust pipe in his mouth.

It was a conspiracy by the CIA and J. Edgar Hoover!
(Even though Hoover was claimed to have already died, but you know we can't trust what the government says!)

instead of DiFi.

From SF Weekly

it had something to do with jonestown, which had happened on the 18th.

I think they took a bit of liberty with Milk's murder but it was symbolic anyway as it was presented. In the movie, he's looking out a window of city hall at the opera house, when he was shot, and had mentioned earlier in the movie hearing Bidu Sayao, a Brazilian soprano, there. That was symbolic and also probably not as graphic and gross as the reality.

I've read the book The Mayor of Castro Street, about Harvey Milk.

I remember seeing the news footage on TV where Dianne Feinstein announced the murders to the nation. They used that footage in the movie.

I also saw the opera "Milk" at Houston Grand Opera. It was also quite good.

At the end of the movie, they repeat Harvey's words about politics: "You've got to give them hope."

If anyone here hasn't yet seen it, you should. Really. It won the Oscar for Best Documentary the year it premiered. Recently it was deemed "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant" by the US Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

MAN. That night catapulted Dianne Feinstein onto the national stage because of how controlled and poised and strong and steady she was as a San Francisco Supervisor, I believe, when she announced to the press that Moscone and Milk had been shot. After running the City for awhile, the Senate beckoned.

Damn. That was such a shocking night. The news she bore was soooooo bad, so horrifying. And it led us into a whole new world of the dreaded "Twinkie Defense."

What a curse that was! Really, we have yet to live it down.

This happened on my birthday and I didn't realize it? Now I will forever have a horrible thing to contemplate when this day rolls around each year.

And no...this is not an attempt to garner birthday wishes. Seriously, I'm old enough not to care any more, so please don't.

I am just appalled that I didn't know the actual day this happened. How can you forget tragic things that happen on your birthday? And I was living in Redwood City at the time. To my shame, I was not politically or socially active in those days...unfortunately I did not get involved until 9/11. But I did see the movie with Sean Penn and thought it was so heartbreaking and a wonderful portrayal in "Milk". Such a sad and devastating event.

It seems our progress in this nation is always pushed forward by tragedy that never should have happened. Why do good things have to be the result of bad things? Can't we just learn how to be better without death and violence?

Mine is the 9th. The anniversary of Krystalnacht and the pogrom against German Jews. I also have the fall of the Berlin wall. Could look it up on wikipedia, did that once before just for fun. Good, bad, it's just another day!

thanks for the reminder.

Sid

hadn't been assassinated. Imagine Milk becoming mayor of S.F., then a Senator, instead of Feinstein...

Out of the closet early so he was a pioneer. It's so sad and pointless that he was murdered.