From Infidel753:
As it happens, the 40th anniversary of Milk’s assassination was just two days ago. Milk was a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the first openly-gay elected official in California, at a time when the position of gay people even in San Francisco was precarious at best — this was the time of Anita Bryant, the Briggs initiative, and the rise of the Moral Majority. Though a latecomer to political activism and sometimes at odds with the city’s more established gay political figures, Milk made use of his office to pass a gay civil rights ordinance and to rally and organize people for the long struggle against bigotry that lay ahead.
He was assassinated by Dan White, a former fellow Supervisor who was (by San Francisco standards) relatively religious and conservative, and had clashed with Milk several times. After a failed business venture, White entered City Hall with a gun and begged Mayor George Moscone to reinstate him as a Supervisor. When Moscone refused, White shot him, then went to his old adversary’s office and murdered him as well.