ON THIS DAY IN UNITED STATES HISTORY
November 22, 1963
President John F. Kennedy is Assassinated
On this day in 1963, U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald while riding in a
motorcade in Dallas, Texas. Also wounded was Texas Governor Connally who was siting in the front passenger
seat.
Although the Warren Commission of 1963-1964 determined Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman, controversy has
surrounded the issue ever since. At one point, as much as 80% of the public doubted the accuracy of the
findings.
John F. Kennedy was our thirty-fifth President. He was elected in in 1960 in one of the closest presidential
races in history. He remains the only practicing Roman Catholic to serve as president, was the only president to
have won a Pulitzer Prize and was the youngest president ever to be elected to the office (Teddy Roosevelt was
younger but he first became president when William McKinley was assassinated in 1901).
Kennedy was president during several dramatic events in our history including the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the
Cuban Missile Crisis, the building of the Berlin Wall, the Space Race, the Civil Rights Movement, the beginning of
the Vietnam War, and of course the assassination.
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