The World Remembers: The Day They Shot John F. Kennedy, President of the United States
Fifty years later the world joins all of the people of the United States in commemorating the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
John F. Kennedy was the 35th President of the United States. The president and the First Lady, Jacqueline, were in Dallas, Texas, on a political trip to ease conflict within the conservative southern wing of the Democratic Party. As he and his wife were riding in a presidential motorcade through the streets of the then mid-sized Texas town he was fatally wounded by bullets fired from a sniper’s rifle on November 22nd 1963.
These are the sounds and the pictures on that transforming day in U.S. history:
The nation and the world reacted with shock and sadness as news of this tragedy quickly spread. He was only forty-six years old when he died at the emergency room of Parkland Hospital.
On that day the wire services, UPI, (United Press International); AP, (Associated Press), radio and television newscasts from all three networks were hard pressed to provide accurate details.
There were only three national television networks in the U.S. fifty years ago. They were CBS, (Columbia Broadcasting System); ABC. (American Broadcasting Company); and NBC, (National Broadcasting Company). There was no twenty-four hour news channel; nor did the Internet exist.
The late David Brinkley, a commentator for NBC News, provides a commentary about the previous days events in the early morning hours of November 23, 1963:
For the next four days newspapers, radio newscasts, and television broadcasts were filled with coverage of the aftermath of the president's death. It was the first time in our history electronic media provided 24 hour coverage of a major news story. And the whole entire planet grieved with the family of the young, vigorous president.
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