WATCH: 47 years ago today, May 4, 1970, Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on student protesters at Kent State Univ. in Ohio. This is how the Huntley-Brinkley Report reported the news of the massacre that night. | NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas

The Kent State shootings (also known as the Kent State massacre or May 4 massacre) were the killing of four and wounding of nine unarmed college students by the Ohio National Guard on the Kent State University campus in Kent, Ohio, United States. The shootings took place on May 4, 1970, during a rally opposing the expanding involvement of the Vietnam War into Cambodia by United States military forces, as well as protesting the National Guard presence on campus and the draft. Twenty-eight Nationa