AS IT HAPPENED: NOVEMBER 22, 1963 AND BEYOND

• On Friday, November 22, 1963, President Kennedy arrived at Love Field from Fort Worth at 11:37 a.m. President Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, accompanied by Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Lady Bird Johnson, Governor John Connally and Mrs. Nellie Connally, had come to Dallas as part of a scheduled two-day Texas tour in preparation for the 1964 presidential campaign.

• An estimated 200,000 Dallas citizens greeted the president’s motorcade as it passed through downtown on the way to a sold-out luncheon for 2,600 people at the Dallas Trade Mart, north of the central business district.

• At 12:30 p.m., as the presidential motorcade turned onto Elm Street, shots rang out. President Kennedy was fatally shot and Governor Connally was seriously wounded. The motorcade raced to Parkland Memorial Hospital where President Kennedy was pronounced dead at 1:00 p.m. Eyewitness testimony at Dealey Plaza led police to an immediate search of the Texas School Book Depository, a textbook distribution facility facing the Plaza at 411 Elm Street. Officials also searched the rail yards and fenced area north of Elm Street and west of the Depository later known as the grassy knoll. Investigators found no evidence at the knoll.

• At 1:12 p.m., police found a barricade of boxes, three spent bullet cartridges and a paper bag under the southeast corner window on the sixth floor of the depository. Ten minutes later, the investigators found a rifle stuffed between boxes near the staircase on the sixth floor, diagonally across from the corner window. This evidence, along with fingerprints and palm prints found on two boxes, was later linked to , an order clerk who had begun work at the depository on October 15, 1963.

• Oswald was seen on the sixth floor about 35 minutes before the president’s motorcade passed the building. He was identified in the second-floor lunchroom about two minutes after the shooting, and was questioned by police and then the building manager. Oswald then left the Depository through the front door.

• After the shooting of Dallas police patrolman J.D. Tippit, officers scuffled with—and arrested—a suspect named Lee Harvey Oswald inside the Texas Theatre in at 1:50 p.m. Oswald, missing from an employee roll call at the Texas School Book Depository, soon became the primary suspect in the president’s shooting. Over the next 24 hours, more than 300 representatives from local, national, and international media organizations descended upon Dallas Police headquarters to cover this major news event.

• On Sunday, November 24, 1963, during a routine transfer from the city jail to the county jail, local nightclub owner Jack Ruby stepped out of the crowd and shot and killed Oswald. In a March 1964 trial, Ruby was convicted and sentenced to death. The verdict was overturned on appeal in the fall of 1966. In January 1967, while awaiting a second trial, Ruby died at Parkland Memorial Hospital.

As It Happened: November 22, 1963 and Beyond |August 2013 } Page 1

• On November 29, 1963, President Johnson established a special national commission, headed by Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy. The Warren Commission issued its report on September 24, 1964, and concluded that Oswald, acting alone, had killed the president. Public questions about discrepancies in the Warren Report led to numerous official investigations during the years following the assassination.

• John F. Kennedy Memorial Plaza was dedicated in on June 13, 1970. The memorial, designed by architect Philip Johnson, was a gift from the people of Dallas County. The county donated the city block on which the memorial is located. The memorial was restored in 2000 to commemorate its 30th anniversary.

• In a report issued January 2, 1979, the House of Representatives’ Select Committee on Assassinations supported the Warren Commission’s conclusion that Oswald fired the shots that killed President Kennedy. However, the committee stated, based on an audio recording of the shooting, that a second gunman fired at the motorcade from the grassy knoll. This was a key factor in the committee’s final conclusion that the president “was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.”

• Subsequent government-authorized studies of the scientific audio tests that led to the House committee’s conspiracy conclusion were undertaken in 1980 and 1982. These later studies repudiated the validity of the committee’s results. In 1988, the Justice Department formally closed the investigation into the Kennedy assassination and concluded that there was no “persuasive evidence” of conspiracy.

• In 1989, The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza opened to the public.

• On November 22, 1993, the building housing The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza became part of the Dealey Plaza Historic Landmark District designated by the .

• The Museum expanded to include the seventh floor in February 2002. The seventh floor gallery provides more than 4,000 square feet of flexible space for innovative installations, exhibitions, performances, educational activities, special events and public discourse.

• In September 2009, the Museum launched a cell phone walking tour of Dealey Plaza and other nearby historic sites related to the assassination of President Kennedy.

• In July 2010, the Museum opened the Reading Room on the first floor of the former Texas School Book Depository Building. The Reading Room offers a reflective environment for anyone seeking information and understanding about the assassination and legacy of President Kennedy and provides greater research access to the Museum’s collection of approximately 45,000 items.

• Also in July 2010, the Museum Store + Café opened across the street from the Museum in the historic 501 Elm building. A selection of freshly brewed coffees and teas, smoothies, frozen yogurt, sandwiches and snacks can be found in the Café. Special gift items include newly published books and documentaries, jewelry, accessories, stationery, children’s items and distinctive pop culture products inspired by the 1960s.

As It Happened: November 22, 1963 and Beyond |August 2013 } Page 2