Today in History: Sixty-Year Anniversary of JFK’s Assassination

By M.C. Millman

Sixty years ago, November 22, 1963, was the day the thirty-fifth president of the United States, President John F Kennedy was shot while riding in an open-top convertible through Dallas, Texas.

The assassination of the president was an act that sent shockwaves around the world. 

First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connally and his wife were in the car at the time waving at the crowd gathered along the parade route as they drove past. 

As the car neared the Texas School Book Depository Building at 12:30 p.m., Lee Harvey Oswald was waiting on the sixth floor. From there, he fired three bullets hitting President Kennedy, age 46 who was pronounced dead thirty minutes later at Dallas’ Parkland Hospital. As a result, Vice President Lyndon Johnson became the 36th president of the U.S. upon being sworn in at 2:39 p.m. on the same day. 

Governor Connally was seriously injured by a bullet as well.

A Dallas dressmaker named Abraham Zapruder stood on a concrete ledge anticipating the president's visit. He became known as the first “citizen journalist” when he managed to capture twenty-six seconds of the aftermath of the assassination on silent 8mm footage taken on his home movie camera. 

November 25 was pronounced a day of national mourning for Kennedy. Hundreds of thousands arrived in Washington to watch the horse-drawn caisson bearing the thirty-fifth president’s body which was buried in Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors. Nearly two million condolence letters from all over the world were sent to Kennedy’s widow, demonstrating the charismatic president's tremendous impact on all.

Lee Harvey Oswald was discharged from the Marines in 1959. In early 1963, he eventually bought a .38 revolver and rifle with a telescopic sight by mail order. In October, he took a job at the Texas School Book Depository Building. After assassinating the president, Oswald also killed Police Officer J.D. Tippit, who questioned him an hour after the event. He was arrested thirty minutes later in a movie theater and was formally arraigned on November 23 for the two murders.

On November 24, Oswald was about to be transferred to a more secure facility. A crowd was on hand ready to witness his departure but instead of going to jail, Oswald was fatally shot by Jack Ruby, who later died of lung cancer after being charged with first-degree murder.

Conspiracy theories about the motive behind Kennedy’s assassination continue until today even though a year after Kennedy’s murder the Warren Commission's report concluded that Oswald had acted alone to kill Kennedy. Yet, in 1978, the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in their own report stating that JFK was “probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy”. The report further details that the conspiracy may have involved multiple shooters and organized crime. Many believe Ruby’s murder of Oswald was to keep Oswald from sharing the details of the real motive and who the motivators were behind the president’s assassination. 

Whether he would have shared details of a conspiracy or not, the fact that he died before being able to testify leaves his side of the story untold and Kennedy’s death an assassination shrouded in mystery until this day.