The assassination of John F. Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, took place on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, USA at 12:30 p.m. CST (18:30 UTC). Kennedy was fatally wounded by gunshots while riding with his wife in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. He was the fourth U.S. President to be assassinated and the eighth to die while in office.
THIS BROKE THE HEARTS OF PEOPLE IN EVERY STATE........MUCH LIKE THE DEATH OF HIS SON ...WHO DIED IN A AIRPLANE CRASH.
An official investigation by the Warren Commission was conducted over a 10-month period, and its report was published in September 1964. The Commission concluded that the assassination was carried out solely by Lee Harvey Oswald, an employee of the Texas School Book Depository in Dealey Plaza. This conclusion initially met with widespread support among the American public, but polling in recent years shows a majority of that public now hold beliefs contrary to the Commission's findings. [1] A later official investigation by the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) was conducted from 1976 to 1979, and it concluded that Kennedy was assassinated by Oswald "probably... as a result of a conspiracy". The assassination is still the subject of widespread speculation, and has spawned a number of Kennedy assassination theories
Assassination
The route taken by the motorcade within Dealey Plaza. North is towards the almost direct-left
Further information: Timeline of the John F. Kennedy assassination
When the limousine had passed the depository, shots were fired at Kennedy. During the shooting, the limousine is calculated to have slowed from over 13 mph (20 km/h) to 9 mph (15 km/h).
The shooting took place in front of Abraham Zapruder who was filming the President as he passed below his position. At one point, he testifies to the shock, disbelief, and then the horror of seeing the President murdered right in front of where he was standing. [1]
Secret Service agent Clinton J. Hill was riding on the left front running board of the car immediately behind the Presidential limousine. Sometime after the shot which hit the president in the neck area, Hill jumped off and ran to overtake the limousine. [3] After the shot, which hit the president in the head, Hill jumped onto the back of the limousine and clung to the car as it exited Dealey Plaza and sped to Parkland Memorial Hospital.
Photo by Ike Altgens taken after at least two shots had already been fired (detail).There was hardly any reaction in the crowd to the first shot, many later saying they thought they had heard a firecracker or a car's exhaust backfire.
Others wounded
Texas Governor John Connally, riding in the same limousine in a seat in front of the President, was also critically injured but survived. Doctors later stated that after the Governor was shot, Mrs. Connally pulled the Governor onto her lap, and the resulting posture helped close his front chest wound (which was causing air to be sucked directly into his chest around his collapsed right lung). The action helped save his life. [citation needed]James Tague, a spectator and witness to the assassination, also received a minor wound to his right cheek while standing 270 feet (82 meters) in front of where Kennedy was shot. The injury resulted from debris ejected when a bullet struck a nearby curb.
Television became the primary source by which people were kept informed of events surrounding John F. Kennedy's assassination. Newspapers were kept as souvenirs rather than sources of updated information. U.S. networks switched to 24-hour news coverage for the first time ever. Kennedy's state funeral procession and the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald were all broadcast live in America and in other places around the world.
The assassination had an effect on many people, not only in the U.S., but also among the world population. Many vividly remember where they were when first learning of the news that Kennedy was assassinated. U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson said of the assassination, "all of us... will bear the grief of his death until the day of ours."
Ultimately, the death of President Kennedy and the ensuing confusion surrounding the facts of his assassination are of political and historical importance insofar as they marked a decline in the faith of the American people in the political establishment — a point made by commentators from Gore Vidal to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
Coupled with the murder of his own brother, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and that of Martin Luther King, Jr., the five tumultuous years from 1963 to 1968 signaled a growing disillusionment within the well of hope for political and social change which so defined the lives of those who lived through the 1960s. Kennedy's introduction of the U.S. to the Vietnam War preceded President Johnson's escalation of a conflict which contributed to a decade of national difficulties and disappointment on the political landscape. The Watergate scandal of President Richard Nixon's administration is widely recognized as being the final stroke in this process of diminishing trust in government.
Kennedy's grave at Arlington National CemeteryOn March 14, 1967, Kennedy's body was moved to a permanent burial place and memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. Kennedy is buried with his wife and their deceased minor children; his brother Robert is also buried nearby. His grave is lit with an "Eternal Flame". Kennedy and William Howard Taft are the only two U.S. Presidents buried at Arlington.
Many of Kennedy's speeches (and especially his inaugural address) are considered iconic, and despite his relatively short term in office and lack of major legislative changes during his term, Americans regularly vote him as one of the best Presidents, in the same league as Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Some excerpts of Kennedy's inaugural address are engraved on a plaque at his grave at Arlington.
Kennedy is also sometimes credited with giving American Catholics the full recognition they deserved as American citizens. He is also seen as responsible for giving Catholics full opportunities in politics outside of the Northeast.
Memorials
Kennedy commemorated at the site of his famous 'Ich bin ein Berliner' speech in West Berlin
Kennedy has appeared on the US half-dollar coin since 1964
The Yad Kennedy memorial near JerusalemKennedy's legacy has been memorialized in various aspects of American culture.
They include:
Kennedy came third (behind Martin Luther King, Jr and Mother Teresa) in a Gallup list of the most admired people of the twentieth century
New York International Airport was renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport on December 24, 1963. Short forms of this, particularly "JFK," have replaced its former commonly used nickname "Idlewild."
The John F. Kennedy Expressway, a major expressway in Chicago was renamed after the President by unanimous vote of the city council, just days after the president's assassination.
NASA's Launch Operations Center at Cape Canaveral was renamed the John F. Kennedy Space Center. Cape Canaveral itself was likewise renamed Cape Kennedy, but reverted to its original name in 1973.
A stretch of Interstate 95 in Maryland, running from the Baltimore Beltway to the State Line, where it becomes the Delaware Turnpike, had been dedicated by President Kennedy on November 14, 1963, just eight days before his assassination. It was soon renamed the John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway.
The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy was named on April 30, 1964.
The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library opened in 1979 as Kennedy's official presidential library.
John F. Kennedy University opened in Pleasant Hill, California, in 1964 as a school for adult education.
The John F. Kennedy National Historic Site preserves his home in Brookline, Massachusetts.
At Harvard University:
The Harvard Institute of Politics serves as a living memorial which promotes public service in his name.
The School of Government is known as the John F. Kennedy School of Government.
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts opened in 1971 in Washington, D.C., as a living memorial to him.
A new, unnamed bridge spanning the Ohio River between Louisville, Kentucky, and Jeffersonville, Indiana, completed four days ahead of Kennedy's assassination, was afterwards quickly named the John F. Kennedy Memorial Bridge.
Hundreds of schools across the U.S were also renamed in his honor.
Posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963
Since 1964, Kennedy's portrait has appeared on the United States half dollar coin, replacing Benjamin Franklin.
At the southwest outskirts of Jerusalem is Yad Kennedy, reached by following the winding mountain roads past Aminadav Moshav. On top of an 825 m. high mountain is a monument in the shape of a cut tree trunk, symbolizing a life cut short. 51 columns, each bearing the emblem of a state of the Union, plus the District of Columbia, encircle the mountaintop memorial. An eternal flame burns in the very centre. The site was opened in 1966 with funds donated by Jewish communities in the USA. The monument and adjoining picnic grounds are part of the John F. Kennedy Peace Forest.