Dianne Feinstein once said that one of the 'hardest moments' of her life was finding Harvey Milk shot dead by her colleague

• Senator Dianne Feinstein found Harvey Milk dead in 1978. She tried to get a pulse and put her finger through a bullet wound.
• She once said the killings of Milk and George Moscone was one of the hardest days in her life.

The late Senator Dianne Feinstein, who died at age 90, once said that one of the most difficult moments in her lifetime was living through the assassinations of her peers George Moscone and the gay icon Harvey Milk.

"I remember it, actually, as if it was yesterday," Feinstein said in a 2008 interview with SFGATE. "And it was one of the hardest moments, if not the hardest moment, of my life."

On November 27, 1978, Feinstein, who was president of San Francisco's Board of Supervisors, returned to City Hall after a three-week absence.

During her leave, Dan White, a supervisor whom Feinstein considered a friend and a mentee, had tendered his resignation from the board.

Feinstein recalled that during her absence White told her that he was quitting the job for a higher-paying one, according to SFGATE.

But White later asked to rescind his resignation, writing to Mayor Moscone that he wished to stay on. His request was declined.

On the morning of November 27, Moscone intended to announce that the supervisor position that White had resigned from would be filled by someone else.

Angered, White went to City Hall with two guns and ammunition in his coat pocket. He shot dead Moscone and hurried across City Hall toward the office space he shared with the Board of Supervisors.

Recalling the incident to CNN in 2017, Feinstein said: "The door to the office opened, and he came in, and I said, 'Dan?'"

White then opened fire on Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, leaving him dead, and fled the scene.

"I heard the doors slam, I heard the shots, I smelled the cordite," Feinstein told CNN.

"I found Harvey on his stomach," she told SFGATE. "I tried to get a pulse and put my finger through a bullet hole. He was clearly dead."

It was Feinstein who made the announcement that both Moscone and Milk had been shot and killed. It was also Feinstein who named White as the then-suspect.

While testifying during White's trial, Feinstein revealed she had survived several assassination attempts herself.

Decades later, she said she didn't intend to watch the 2008 Oscar-winning biopic "Milk."

"I think in my face you saw the pain of the day 30 years ago," she told SFGATE in 2008. "I still have a hard time returning to it, and I'm not a masochist."

She went on: "I know what happened; I lived those times, and I've tried to learn from them in terms of the kind of public servant I am, and that's really enough for me."

Feinstein became acting mayor after Moscone's death — the first woman to serve in that office.

She was elected in her own right and served as mayor for 10 years before later becoming a senator for California and, eventually, the US's longest-serving female senator.