re: What's the biggest death since JFK?

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RFK and MLK were mentioned. I'm too young but I bet it felt like the world was gonna burn.

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Yes, I don't think there's really any comparison with all the others mentioned in this thread. These two deaths probably had a bigger impact on the U.S. and the world than all the others put together.

There is no telling how differently the civil rights movement would have played out with MLK's steadying influence. His murder injected a bitterness into the entire movement which also fueled the backlash we are still seeing today.

RFK might very well have won the presidency in 1968 if he had not been killed. If so, there would have been no Watergate, which was really the death knell for people's trust in the government and the beginning of the extreme adversarial relationship between media and politicians. Also, as with King, his death brought a bitterness to the progressive elements who supported him which, again, generated a backlash that we are still seeing today. Our entire political discourse might have been completely different if he had lived.

These two men, had they not been killed, might very well have enabled us to avoid the hopelessly poisonous political and racial environment we live in today.