Qualla: Assassination of John F. Kennedy

Assassination of John F. Kennedy: Introduction

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The motorcade was running five minutes late. It had left Love Field at 11:50 a.m. on November 22, 1963, the presidential limousine's bubble top removed so Dallas crowds could see John and Jacqueline Kennedy up close. Governor John Connally and his wife Nellie sat in the jump seats ahead of them. As the car turned left from Houston Street onto Elm, passing beneath the Texas School Book Depository, Nellie Connally turned to the president and said, 'Mr. President, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you.' Seconds later, at 12:30 p.m., shots rang out across Dealey Plaza.

Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Assassination of John F. Kennedy: Eighty Seconds in Dealey Plaza

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Warren Commission archive photograph, annotated by User:Skybunny and uploaded to Wikipedia 23:06, 24 Sep 2003, Public domain. From a sixth-floor corner window of the Texas School Book Depository, Lee Harvey Oswald, a 24-year-old former Marine who had defected to the Soviet Union and returned, fired three rounds from a 6.5mm Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. One bullet struck Kennedy in the upper back, exited th...

Image: Warren Commission archive photograph, annotated by User:Skybunny and uploaded to Wikipedia 23:06, 24 Sep 2003 | Public domain

Assassination of John F. Kennedy: The Longest Afternoon

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. What followed compressed a lifetime of national trauma into a single afternoon. Oswald slipped out of the Book Depository and took a bus to his boarding house, where he retrieved a jacket and a revolver. At 1:12 p.m., Dallas police officer J. D. Tippit spotted Oswald in the Oak C...

Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Assassination of John F. Kennedy: A Nation Watches, Then Watches Again

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Two days later, on the morning of November 24, as Oswald was being transferred to the county jail, Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby stepped from a crowd in the basement of police headquarters and shot him once in the abdomen. The killing was broadcast live on national television ...

Image: Public domain

Assassination of John F. Kennedy: What Dealey Plaza Holds

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Adam Jones from Kelowna, BC, Canada, CC BY-SA 2.0. Today the Texas School Book Depository houses the Sixth Floor Museum, which opened in 1989 on the floor from which Oswald fired. The corner window where he positioned his rifle is reconstructed with period boxes. Below, Dealey Plaza itself is a National Historic Landmark, its con...

Image: Adam Jones from Kelowna, BC, Canada | CC BY-SA 2.0