KTVU archives: Assassination of Mayor George Moscone, Supervisor Harvey Milk

SAN FRANCISCO (KTVU) - The assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk are remembered as one of the darkest days in San Francisco's history, and it happened 38 years ago.

Both Mayor Moscone and Milk were shot and killed on November 27th of 1978. 

Moscone was the city's liberal mayor who had won the election by a razor thin margin - he had just spent the weekend celebrating his 49th birthday.

Milk ran a camera shop in the Castro district and had become the city's first openly gay elected supervisor.

The man who shot them, Dan White, had been a San Francisco cop and firefighter - had just resigned as a city supervisor to run a small business on Pier 39

He wanted his supervisor's job back and on that tragic Monday morning he had learned Moscone was going to give the seat to someone else.

A short while later, White turned himself in.

Harvey Milk would become a martyr to the gay community.

The city erected statues for Moscone and named a major economic development in his name.