At 12:30 p. m. on November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas and struck President John F. Kennedy’s open-top limousine as it moved through Dealey Plaza.
The third bullet fractured the president’s skull, according to experts, and the momentum of the attack set off a sequence of events that continues to raise questions six decades later. Secret Service Agent Clint Hill, stationed on the bumper of the follow-up vehicle, sprinted toward the presidential limousine after the first shot. He reached the car just as Jackie Kennedy climbed onto the trunk, apparently reaching for a piece of her husband’s skull. Hill pushed her back into the rear seat as the driver accelerated toward Parkland Hospital.
During the ride, Jackie spoke to her husband, with later accounts recalling her asking, “Jack, can you hear me? ” and saying, “I love you, Jack. ” Hill later said that if he had been assigned to the president’s car rather than the trailing vehicle, he could have reached Kennedy in time to save him. Inside the Texas School Book Depository, Lee Harvey Oswald hid his rifle among boxes of books on the sixth floor, then walked down a stairway and met his manager and a Dallas police officer in a second-floor break room within about 90 seconds.
Suspicion had not yet fallen on him, and he was allowed to leave the building just three minutes after the shooting. Oswald boarded a city bus but quickly got off because traffic from the assassination had caused gridlock. He then took a cab to his boarding house in the Oak Cliff neighborhood. A housekeeper saw him enter his room and leave shortly after, wearing an outer coat.
Around that same time, Robert Kennedy was having lunch at his Virginia home, thousands of miles away, when FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover called. Hoover said flatly, “I have news for you. The president has been shot.
” When Bobby pressed for details on the severity, Hoover said he believed it was serious, promised to call back with more information, and hung up. The limousine arrived at Parkland Hospital at 12:38 p. m. , and President Kennedy was rushed into Trauma Room 1.
Chief resident Dr. Ronald Jones and his team performed an emergency airway incision, administered cardiac compressions, and started an IV, but the efforts were futile. Kennedy was pronounced dead 12 minutes after arrival. When Jackie Kennedy and the presidential party tried to leave with the body, Dallas County Medical Examiner Earl Rose blocked the way.
Rose insisted that Texas law required an autopsy to be performed within the jurisdiction of the shooting, which was legally accurate. Jackie refused to leave without her husband’s remains. The standoff escalated, and some reports say Secret Service agents drew their weapons to clear a path. The coffin was taken to Love Field, loaded onto Air Force One, and flown out of local jurisdiction.
At about 1:00 p. m. , Oswald left his boarding house and walked through nearby streets. Around 1:15 p.
m. , he encountered Dallas patrolman J. D. Tippit at the intersection of Patton and 10th Streets.
Witnesses saw Oswald speak to Tippit through the patrol car window. The officer got out and walked toward Oswald, who pulled out a pistol and fired four rounds, one of which killed Tippit. What the two men said to each other has never been established, and whether Tippit recognized Oswald from the assassination description remains unknown. Oswald’s furtive behavior after the shooting caught the attention of shoe salesman Johnny Brewer, who heard sirens and followed Oswald as he slipped into a movie theater without paying.
Brewer alerted theater staff, who called police. Officers stormed the theater, stopped the film, and turned on the lights. Patrolman Nick McDonald searched several patrons before confronting Oswald. When McDonald ordered him to stand, Oswald shouted, “It’s all over now,” and punched the officer while grabbing for his sidearm.
Other officers restrained him, and Oswald was arrested and taken into custody. At 2:38 p. m. Central time, federal judge Sarah T.
Hughes, who had been appointed by Kennedy only months earlier, administered the presidential oath to Lyndon B. Johnson aboard Air Force One. It was the only time in history that a woman officiated a presidential inauguration. Johnson insisted Jackie Kennedy stand beside him during the ceremony to signal that the Kennedy family backed the transfer of power.
Air Force One landed at Andrews Air Force Base around 6:00 p. m. Eastern time, and the nation watched live as the president’s casket was unloaded. Robert Kennedy, who had boarded the plane upon landing, appeared alongside Jackie.
President Johnson then spoke briefly to reporters, saying the country had suffered an immeasurable loss. Jackie Kennedy was still wearing the pink suit she had on when her husband was shot, with his dried blood visibly on her skirt. It was a deliberate choice. Hours earlier, aides had asked if she wanted to change, and she refused, saying, “I want them to see what they did to Jack.
”
On Friday evening, Oswald was charged with the murder of Patrolman Tippit. Early Saturday morning, he was formally charged with assassinating President Kennedy. During an impromptu media briefing, Oswald told reporters, “The only thing I’ve done is possess a handgun in a movie theater. ” He added, “I haven’t killed anybody, I haven’t shot anybody.
I’m just a patsy. ”
Despite his background as a Marine marksman, a former Soviet resident, and a self-described Marxist, Oswald maintained his innocence throughout his detention at the Dallas County Jail. On November 24, Kennedy’s coffin was taken to the U. S.
Capitol Rotunda on the same horse-drawn caisson that carried Franklin D. Roosevelt’s remains in 1945. A cortege of Kennedy family members, military personnel, and officials from dozens of nations followed. Roughly a million people lined the route, and nearly 250,000 citizens filed past the closed casket over the following day.
Even though temperatures fell below freezing, the line stretched more than two miles, and thousands were turned away when visitation ended. That same Sunday, Dallas authorities decided to move Oswald from the city jail to the county detention facility, supposedly for his own protection. The transfer would instead lead to his death. As Oswald was escorted through the jail’s basement, Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby stepped forward and shot him at close range.
The murder was broadcast live on television, delivering another shock to a nation still mourning the president. Oswald died shortly afterward on the same operating table at Parkland Hospital where Kennedy had been declared dead two days earlier. Ruby’s motives have never been clearly established. Some have pointed to his alleged ties to organized crime, while others argue he acted spontaneously, believing that killing Oswald would make him a hero.
Supporters of the spontaneous theory note that Ruby was wiring money to a dancer at his club around the time of the transfer, making it nearly impossible for him to have coordinated the shooting in advance. They also point out that Ruby left his beloved dachshund in his car during the transfer, a move that seems illogical for someone planning a murder. Whatever the case, Ruby took his reasons to his grave. On November 25, Kennedy’s funeral Mass was held at St.
Matthew’s Cathedral before more than 1,200 guests. As the coffin came down the church steps past the Kennedy family, Jackie leaned down and whispered to her young son, John Jr. , who immediately straightened and saluted his father’s casket. The image became one of the most iconic photographs of the 20th century.
It was also the boy’s third birthday, and he was considered too young to attend the burial. The funeral procession, joined by leaders from 99 nations, continued to Arlington National Cemetery. Many had expected Kennedy to be buried in Brookline, Massachusetts, where he was born, but Jackie changed her mind after visiting Arlington. She felt the site reflected his public legacy and chose a plot on a slope below the Custis-Lee Mansion.
An eternal flame was lit during the burial ceremony. The grave became a major memorial site, drawing an average of 3,000 visitors an hour in the first years after the assassination. More than 16 million people paid their respects within three years. Jackie Kennedy was buried beside her husband on May 23, 1994.
Oswald’s burial, by contrast, was quickly arranged in Fort Worth, Texas. At a short service attended by his wife, two young children, mother, and brother, he was interred at Rose Hill Memorial Park. Journalists, police, and federal agents crowded the gravesite, and there were not enough family members to serve as pallbearers, so reporters were recruited for the task. Oswald’s grave was itself disturbed over the years.
His tombstone was stolen in 1967 by vandals. In 1981, his body was exhumed at the request of his ex-wife, who sought to verify that the remains were actually his. Conspiracy theorists had suggested that an impostor was buried in the grave to cover up the assassination. Dental records and a childhood mastoidectomy scar confirmed the body was Lee Harvey Oswald.
Decades later, the assassination still produces more questions than answers. A president was murdered in broad daylight, his accused killer was silenced on live television, a widow turned her grief into a pointed public statement, and a grave was robbed and then reopened. The Warren Commission concluded that Oswald acted alone, but conflicting witness accounts, unresolved motives, and unanswered questions have kept the debate alive. Ruby reportedly whispered that “the truth will die with me.
” Oswald died insisting he was a patsy. Whether the strange events of that weekend were tragic coincidences or fragments of a larger story remains unsettled.