It used to be said that everyone could say where they were when they heard the news that President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was dead. It’s now 55 years since that shocking afternoon in Dallas, Texas, and there are obviously fewer people alive who can attest where they were that fateful afternoon.
The President and his party, which included his wife Jackie, Governor John Connally and his wife Nellie, travelling in the first car. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife followed in an accompanying car in the motorcade.
The Kennedys had spent the night of the 21 November in Fort Worth. The presidential party took a thirteen-minute flight from Carswell Air Force Base to Dallas and then drove towards the afternoon’s engagement at the Trade Mart for a lunch where the President was expected to speak.
Crowds of people lined the streets of Dallas to catch a glimpse of the President and his wife. The presidential car entered Dealey Plaza around 12:30 p.m. As the car passed the Texas Book Depository the President was fatally shot. He was hit in the neck and head before slumping across towards his wife. Governor John Connally was shot in the back, he would eventually recover from his injuries.
Panic ensued as Jackie Kennedy first tried to exit the rear of the vehicle before the car sped to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where the medical team were unable to save the President. John F. Kennedy was given the last rites of the Roman Catholic church and was pronounced dead at 1 p.m.
The President was returned to Washington in a coffin later that day on Air Force One. On the same flight, Lyndon B. Johnson swore the oath of office at 2:38 p.m. President John F. Kennedy was buried in Arlington National Cemetary on 25 November 1963.
Source:
https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/november-22-1963-death-of-the-president
HistorianRuby: An Historian's Miscellany 
I was almost 10 years old and remember it. I liked President Kennedy then and I was sad at the news. (Shhh…. should rights be rites?).
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Aaah crap! Thanks 😉 I hate that sort of thing!!!
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I wasn’t even born then but my husband is ten years older. He was in elementary school and said they announced it over the tannoy. It must have been really shocking to be there.
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It’s out of my lifetime too, but my grandmother died on the 18th. Mum always said it was the same week as Kennedy and when I did my research it proved correct. I can’t imagine the news being announced to primary school-aged kids!
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Horrific huh?
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It doesn’t seem right. People complain that the pc brigade ruin things today but when you look at that example and there are countless others, I’m glad that today’s sensibilities are more sensitive to others’ possible distress.
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Me too – but I think it’s gone way too far the other way. You can’t and shouldn’t protect people from life. Sooner or later they will be on their own and no back up
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Thanks for the thumbs up on my post about this day!
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You’re welcome, it’s fascinating to hear other peoples’ stories and reflections on such a momentous day.
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I was in grade two and the principal who was a nun, came into the classroom and told us the president had been shot and we should pray for him. We knew it was a shocking thing that had happened. Later my mother made us watch some of the funeral on tv as she said it was part of history. I suppose the younger generation will remember where they were when 911 happened. You don’t forget those things that shake the world, and our sense of security.
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Wow, again news released in school. I suppose that is normal, it just seems odd to me as my children are now older so I’m out of that environment these days. No, those paradigm-shifting events are usually embedded in our memories.
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I was in study hall in high school. Hard to believe that my grandchildren don’t even know much about this. Kind of like my parents always remembered where they were when the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred but to my generation it was just history taught in school.
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Such a horrible thing to have happen. I was just a baby, and we were living in France at the time. I wonder when my dad heard the news? I think I should ask him!
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Definitely! There could be a book in there somewhere recalling all the memories of that day.
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My husband was 15 and he remembers only vaguely that it was announced in school (Colorado Springs) and how upset everyone was – people crying and such.
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An interesting read. There are times when I wish he, his brother RFK and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were still with us to help create a better world for all.
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Wouldn’t that be nice . . .
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