He died a year and a half before I was born

In November of 1978 Harvey Milk was murdered by Dan White, whose mockery of a trial known as the "twinky defense" resulted in over 160 hospitalizations from riots with police and the eventual abolishment of the "diminished capacity" type sentence he was given.

Milk was, according to Time magazine, "the first openly gay man elected to any substantial political office in the history of the planet." Now Sean Penn will star in a movie depicting his life, whose events and impact changed the world I was born into. Thank you Harvey.