(WASHINGTON) — Political violence and extreme rhetoric in the United States today mirror the turbulent 1960s, but with key differences that make the current era particularly challenging, according to presidential historian Mark Updegrove.

“The 1960s were another time of great upheaval and discord and division,” Updegrove told ABC News on Thursday, one day after the fatal shooting of conservative youth leader Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University. “In just five years, we saw the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, and in 1968 alone, the back-to-back assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy.”

As FBI agents recovered what they believed to be the murder weapon—a high-powered bolt action rifle—from a wooded area near the shooting site and continued their manhunt for

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