Kennedy Assassination

1. Clint Hill When the Secret Service agent assigned to Jackie Kennedy heard the shots ring out in Dealey Plaza, he rushed from the left running board of the trailing car and dove onto the trunk of the presidential limousine and shoved scrambling Jackie Kennedy back inside the ...read more

While the police converged on the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas and doctors at Parkland Hospital began working on the mortally wounded President in Emergency Room No. 1, Lee Harvey Oswald was briskly walking the seven blocks from the depository to the bus stop at Elm ...read more

Against the backdrop of fear and apprehension over the spread of communism, the Kennedy administration was constantly preoccupied with how to maintain U.S. power and avoid the catastrophic consequences that would follow from nuclear conflict. In the wake of the Cuban Missile ...read more

On November 22, 1963, Abraham Zapruder shot what has become the most famous home movie of all time: a chilling 26-second snippet of film depicting the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The Russian-born Zapruder was a clothing manufacturer whose office sat across the ...read more

1. Some members of the Commission were reluctant to serve on it. Lyndon Johnson initially resisted the idea of forming a federal commission to investigate Kennedy’s assassination, preferring to allow the state of Texas to review what he called a “local killing.” But after ...read more

1. The Politician Born on a farm, John Connally earned both an undergraduate and law degree from the University of Texas prior to serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II. He got his political start as a legislative assistant to then-Representative Lyndon B. Johnson and later ...read more

In the spring of 1963, President John F. Kennedy paid a visit to Arlington House, an estate built by George Washington Parke Custis, the step-grandson of America’s first president, and later inhabited by Custis’ son-in-law, the Confederate general Robert E. Lee. The Greek Revival ...read more

On November 24, 1963, Jack Ruby (1911-1967), a 52-year-old Dallas nightclub operator, stunned America when he shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald (1939-1963), the accused assassin of President John Kennedy (1917-1963). Two days earlier, on November 22, Kennedy was fatally shot ...read more

Three days after his assassination in Dallas, Texas, John F. Kennedy is laid to rest with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was shot to death while riding in an open-car motorcade with his wife and ...read more

Earl Warren (1891-1974) was a prominent 20th century leader of American politics and law. Elected California governor in 1942, Warren secured major reform legislation during his three terms in office. After failing to claim the Republican nomination for the presidency, he was ...read more