50 Fun Facts About JFK Assassination

Who shot Lee Harvey Oswald on live television in the basement of Dallas police headquarters?

Jack Ruby was sentenced to death for the killing, but the conviction was overturned on appeal and he died of illness in 1967 before a new trial could begin.

From which Dallas building, his own workplace, did investigators conclude Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy?

The Texas School Book Depository now houses The Sixth Floor Museum, named for the corner window from which investigators concluded the shots came.

Where did Lyndon B. Johnson take the presidential oath about two hours after Kennedy was shot?

Aboard Air Force One, 27 people squeezed into a stateroom at Love Field to watch. It is the only time a US president has taken the oath on an airplane.

Aldous Huxley and which other British author died on the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated?

C. S. Lewis collapsed at home about an hour before the shots in Dallas, so news of the Narnia author's death was largely overshadowed.

A week after the assassination, Jacqueline Kennedy compared her husband's presidency to which musical?

Camelot was the Lerner and Loewe show whose cast album the president liked to play before bed, she told an interviewer. The name has stuck to the Kennedy years ever since.

What gesture did John F. Kennedy Jr. make toward his father's casket on the day he turned three?

A salute from the three-year-old, prompted by a whisper from his mother outside the cathedral, became one of the defining images of the 1960s.

Where was John F. Kennedy buried, on a hillside above Washington he had admired months earlier?

Arlington National Cemetery was a late change: early press reports had him going to a family plot in Brookline, Massachusetts, where his infant son Patrick lay.

Which news anchor took off his glasses on live television to announce that President Kennedy had died?

Walter Cronkite read out the wire flash, paused, put his glasses back on and swallowed hard before he could carry on with the broadcast.

Which long-running British television series began the day after John F. Kennedy was assassinated?

Doctor Who launched on 23 November 1963, and the BBC repeated the first episode a week later because the news from Dallas had overshadowed it.

Up which Dallas landmark did police and bystanders run to look for a gunman after Kennedy was shot?

The grassy knoll, a small slope to the right of the limousine, became the heart of later conspiracy theories, though no gunman was found behind its picket fence.

In which Dallas park, sometimes called the birthplace of the city, was John F. Kennedy shot?

Dealey Plaza is named for George Dealey, a longtime publisher of The Dallas Morning News, and was made a National Historic Landmark in 1993, thirty years after the shooting.

Where was President Kennedy rushed after the shooting and pronounced dead about thirty minutes later?

Parkland Memorial Hospital also received Lee Harvey Oswald two days later, and the man who shot him died in the same hospital in 1967.

Which Texas governor, riding in President Kennedy's limousine, was also hit by gunfire in Dallas?

John Connally recovered from his wounds, served as Richard Nixon's Treasury secretary while still a Democrat, and became a Republican in 1973.

Which director's 1991 film JFK helped push Congress to order the release of assassination records?

Oliver Stone built the film around a Louisiana prosecutor played by Kevin Costner, and a review board later partly credited it for the 1992 law that opened the files.

To which country did Lee Harvey Oswald defect, returning to Texas in 1962 with a wife and baby daughter?

Soviet Union officials turned down his wish to study in Moscow and sent him to Minsk, where he worked as a lathe operator in an electronics factory.

In which branch of the US military did Lee Harvey Oswald enlist a week after his seventeenth birthday?

Marines are all tested in shooting, and he first qualified as a sharpshooter before a later score dropped him to marksman, the lowest passing grade.

Which US coin has carried John F. Kennedy's portrait since Congress approved it weeks after his death?

The half dollar was hoarded as a keepsake as soon as it appeared in March 1964, so the new coin was seldom seen in circulation.

Which president, shot at a world's fair in Buffalo, was the last to be assassinated before John F. Kennedy?

William McKinley died in 1901, and Congress responded by asking the Secret Service to take on the job of protecting presidents.

Which Dallas dress manufacturer filmed the assassination of John F. Kennedy with a home-movie camera?

Abraham Zapruder had left his camera at home because of the morning rain, and only went back for it when his assistant insisted.

In what kind of building did Dallas police arrest Lee Harvey Oswald about eighty minutes after the shooting?

A movie theater, the Texas Theatre, was showing War Is Hell when he slipped in without paying and a nearby shoe-store manager had the police called.

Which future US president, then a Michigan congressman, sat on the Warren Commission?

Gerald Ford was assigned to prepare the commission's biography of Lee Harvey Oswald, and when he died in 2006 he was its last surviving member.

Earl Warren led the official inquiry into the Kennedy assassination while holding which high office?

Chief Justice was a post he thought ruled him out: he at first refused to lead the inquiry, arguing that a judge should not serve the executive branch.

Jacqueline Kennedy wanted the East Room arranged as it had been for which earlier president's funeral?

Abraham Lincoln's catafalque, the platform that had held his coffin, was brought out again to carry the Kennedy casket.

Which Florida landmark was renamed for John F. Kennedy six days after his death, then changed back in 1973?

Cape Canaveral became Cape Kennedy after his widow suggested naming the space facility for him; the new president went further and renamed the whole cape.

In which country was Lee Harvey Oswald's rifle manufactured in 1940, as a standard infantry weapon?

Italy's Royal Arms Factory at Terni built the Carcano rifle, which reached America years later as cheap military surplus.

Which Dallas police officer was shot dead in Oak Cliff less than an hour after President Kennedy?

J. D. Tippit's murder, not the president's, was the crime Lee Harvey Oswald was first arrested for that afternoon.

What feature did Jacqueline Kennedy request for her husband's grave, inspired by one she had seen in Paris?

An eternal flame burns at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier under the Arc de Triomphe, which the Kennedys saw in 1961. Army engineers built hers overnight from a gas torch.

Which Texas judge, appointed to the federal bench by Kennedy, gave Lyndon B. Johnson the presidential oath in Dallas?

Sarah T. Hughes became the first woman to administer the presidential oath, with Jacqueline Kennedy standing at the new president's side.

Lyndon B. Johnson took the presidential oath in Dallas with his hand on what book, mistaken for a Bible?

A Catholic missal found on a side table among Kennedy's belongings was grabbed in the rush, though the new president was not Catholic himself.

What was New York's international airport called before it was renamed for John F. Kennedy?

Idlewild was the name of a beachside golf course the airfield displaced, and the common name stuck until Christmas Eve 1963.

Which magazine paid $150,000 for all rights to the home movie that captured the Kennedy assassination?

Life outbid CBS for the film the morning after the shooting and printed frames within a week, but its publisher kept the footage itself from public view.

How did Lee Harvey Oswald acquire his rifle in March 1963, using the alias A. Hidell?

By mail order, under the same false name, he also bought a revolver from a different company.

What did Lee Harvey Oswald tell the co-worker who drove him to work was inside his long paper bag?

Curtain rods was his story, but the Warren Commission concluded the bag held the rifle. He left $170 and his wedding ring behind that morning.

What did Lee Harvey Oswald call himself as he denied the shootings to reporters in a Dallas police hallway?

A patsy, he told the reporters, while insisting he had not shot anybody; he was killed before any trial could test the claim.

In which Texas city did John F. Kennedy spend his final night, at the Hotel Texas?

Fort Worth heard his last speech, given in a hotel ballroom that morning, just hours before the motorcade through Dallas.

Where was President Kennedy's motorcade heading for a luncheon when the shots were fired in Dallas?

The Trade Mart had 2,600 guests seated for a sold-out luncheon, waiting for a speech the president never gave.

Where was John F. Kennedy's autopsy performed on the night of the assassination, at his widow's choosing?

Bethesda Naval Hospital was her choice because her husband had been a naval officer in World War II; Dallas officials had argued that Texas law required an autopsy there.

Where did a quarter of a million mourners file past John F. Kennedy's casket in eighteen hours?

The Capitol Rotunda stayed open through the day and night for the public, after the casket had first rested in the White House.

Which nickname stuck to the Warren Commission's finding that one shot wounded both Kennedy and the Texas governor?

The magic bullet turned up at the Dallas hospital, where it rolled out when an engineer bumped a stretcher against a corridor wall.

Which Louisiana district attorney brought the only criminal trial ever held over the Kennedy assassination?

Jim Garrison charged businessman Clay Shaw with conspiracy, and in 1969 the jury took less than an hour to find him not guilty.

Which future Pennsylvania senator, then a Warren Commission lawyer, helped formulate the single-bullet theory?

Arlen Specter was an assistant counsel on the commission's staff, years before a 30-year career in the Senate.

Which former CIA director, forced out by Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs, later sat on the Warren Commission?

Allen Dulles had run the CIA for eight years, and ended up helping to judge how the man who had dismissed him died.

Which former Army general did the Warren Commission conclude Lee Harvey Oswald had shot at in April 1963?

Edwin Walker escaped serious injury when the bullet, fired from outside his Dallas home, struck a window frame and broke apart.

Which Secret Service agent leaped onto the back of President Kennedy's limousine as the shots rang out?

Clint Hill ran from the follow-up car and shielded the president and first lady with his own body as the limousine raced away.

What evidence led a House committee to conclude in 1979 that Kennedy was probably killed by a conspiracy?

A police recording, made when a motorcycle officer's radio microphone stuck open, seemed to capture four shots. A National Academy of Sciences panel later found it did not support a second gunman.

Who was asked to serve as pallbearers at Lee Harvey Oswald's burial, held under heavy guard?

Journalists covering the burial were pressed into service, and a local minister who had volunteered led the brief graveside service.

In 1963, the murder of a US president was not what, a gap the Warren Commission urged Congress to close?

A federal crime it was not, which left the case with Texas authorities and nearly kept the president's body in Dallas for a local autopsy.

The Umbrella Man beside Kennedy's motorcade later said his umbrella mocked which relative of the president?

His father Joseph had backed Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister who appeased Hitler, and a black umbrella was Chamberlain's trademark.

On which US television network did millions watch the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald as it happened?

NBC was carrying the jail transfer live, so its viewers saw the shot as it was fired; the other networks aired the pictures within minutes.

What became of the limousine in which John F. Kennedy was shot, dubbed the Death Car by the Associated Press?

It was rebuilt and reused: repainted black and refitted at a cost of about $500,000, the car served four more presidents before retiring in 1977.