The Timeline Of JFK's Assassination Explained

It's one of the most famous moments in American history: The assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It's the moment that every single person of an entire generation — regardless of political alliances — remembered so vividly, with it often being said that everyone knew where they were and what they were doing when they heard the president had been killed.

It was a sunny November day in Dallas, Texas... and although there's a lot that's been told and retold over the decades since the assassination, there's plenty of lesser-known tidbits of fascinating information that have been largely overlooked along the way. The fact that it was sunny was once part of some heavy-duty speculation: Because it had stopped raining earlier in the day, the presidential car had a protective plastic roof removed. Would it have made a difference? No: In spite of later claims, Gary Mack — curator of the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza — has said (via The Dallas Morning News) that the missing top wasn't bulletproof.

Here's another strange tidbit: When Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn into office, he needed a car ASAP. The solution? Strip down and clean the car that the Kennedys had been riding in during the assassination, give it a fresh coat of paint, and put it back into service. And it would stay there through Johnson's, Nixon's, and into Carter's terms, when it was finally retired. Strange? It's not the strangest thing that happened around one of the most shocking events in American history.

The blame for Kennedy's assassination would be placed squarely on Lee Harvey Oswald, and without getting into the controversy behind that, it's worth mentioning that it apparently wasn't the first time he had decided to further his political agenda by killing someone he thought was standing in the way. Who was that? A U.S. Army general named Edwin Walker (pictured, at his Dallas home). Walker was a pretty controversial figure at the time, known for his extreme, right-wing views, including calling for the assassination of Fidel Castro.

Journalist and author Bill Minutaglio says (via History) that's where Oswald came in. It's presumed that Oswald saw Walker as an immediate threat to his beloved Communist regime, so on April 10, 1963, he set himself up behind a fence near Walker's home and at 9 p.m., found himself with a pretty perfect shot at the general. He fired one shot and inexplicably missed, sending the general running outside after the would-be assassin.

And here's where there's one of those weird things that — in hindsight — can be pointed at as having the potential to have changed history. Even though the Dallas police were convinced that the shot fired at Walker had been a deliberate assassination attempt, they had no suspect. Minutaglio says, "Some people have criticized the investigation of the Walker assassination attempt. They say, if it had been a truly deep and thorough investigation, then Oswald would have been arrested and imprisoned, and JFK would have lived."

Everyone's familiar with the scene: The presidential motorcade rolls down the street in Dallas, gunshots ring out, and chaos descends. So, let's get up close and personal with someone who had a front-row seat: Secret Service agent Clint Hill. He told Radio Diaries (via NPR), "Before Dallas, I was known as just Clint Hill. After that, I've been known as the man who climbed onto the president's car. That six-second period in Dallas, it's not an easy thing to live with."

Hill was officially in charge of protecting not JFK, but Jackie Kennedy: He has said that in the first instant, no one was sure what had happened. He thought of firecrackers first, and it was only when he saw JFK fall that he realized what was happening. Hill had been riding on the car behind the president, and that's when those famous photos were taken. He ran forward, jumped on the trunk, pushed Jackie Kennedy back into the back seat, and shielded them as the car took off.

Hill says that the instant it happened, he knew there was no chance for JFK to survive. He also said that in the weeks before the assassination, JFK and Jackie had reconnected over a shared tragedy: The death of their son, Patrick. He had died at two days old, and Hill says (via The Guardian) that's why Jackie had broken from a long-standing tradition and decided to join her husband on his trip to Dallas. 

It's understandable how there could be varying opinions on the details of exactly how the events of the Kennedy assassination happened. Take the story of Paul Landis. He was one of the Secret Service agents who was there that day, and it took him until 2023 to share his side of the story — and it involved the so-called "magic bullet theory."

One of the biggest questions is how the same bullet hit JFK and Texas Governor John B. Connally Jr. repeatedly, and Landis claimed that his timeline of events actually cleared all that up. Kind of. Contrary to official reports that describe a bullet being found on a stretcher after Connally was taken to Parkland (the one pictured), Landis says that with no one on hand to secure the crime scene that was the limousine, he did. Sort of.

Landis told The New York Times that he'd plucked a bullet from the back of Connally's seat, put it on the stretcher next to Kennedy, and then? It's anyone's guess. "All the agents that were there were focused on the president. This was all going on so quickly. And I was just afraid that — it was a piece of evidence, that I realized right away. Very important. And I didn't want it to disappear or get lost. So it was, 'Paul, you've got to make a decision,' and I grabbed it."

Then-Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was also a part of the motorcade, and it was a full 50 minutes after those shots were fired that Johnson learned he had become the next POTUS. It was 98 minutes later that he was officially sworn in.

Before that, though, he made a phone call to the Attorney General to find out just what the heck he was supposed to be doing now. Unfortunately for him, that was Robert Kennedy. Still, the show must go on in the face of shock, grief, and tragedy, and Kennedy gave him everything he needed to know for an impromptu inauguration aboard Air Force One — even as it carried JFK's body back to D.C. 

Everyone's seen those iconic photos, but there are a few fascinating things here that often get overlooked. The person doing the swearing-in was a federal judge from Texas. Sarah Hughes became the first woman to ever swear in a president, and it was Johnson who had pressured Robert Kennedy for her installment as a federal judge a few years prior. (Kennedy thought she was too old, not to mention female.) Although it would make sense to think that he was sworn in on JFK's personal Bible, the book wasn't a Bible at all: It was a Catholic missal that actually disappeared for a while, before being re-discovered and given to the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum.

When John F. Kennedy's body was returned to the East Coast, he was taken to the Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, for an autopsy — and for a long time, discrepancies have been fueling conspiracy theories. A 1998 piece in The Washington Post laid out some of the problems, and they included things like no one being entirely sure when or how many times his brain was examined. And as for that brain? That was removed, given to someone from Senator Robert Kennedy's camp in 1965, and when autopsy materials were collected the following year for inclusion in the National Archives, it was missing. 

When investigative reporter Philip Shenon was working on his book, "A Cruel and Shocking Act," he found other questionable facts. He told NPR that Chief Justice Earl Warren forbade the release of autopsy photos, even to those working as part of the Warren Commission. Instead, they, too, were given to Robert Kennedy. Meanwhile, the pathologist in charge of the autopsy burned all the documentation the day after the procedure was done. Why? He said they had blood on them.

Forensic pathologist Werner Spitz has worked on the Kennedy case at various times, starting in 1975 when he was called in as an expert witness. He told USA Today that in his expert opinion, there were so many things that were done wrong it was pretty much impossible to count them all, and summed it up like this: "They botched that autopsy. They had absolutely no experience in forensic pathology."

After the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, things happened very quickly. The massive funeral was arranged and based on the funeral of another assassinated president, Abraham Lincoln, and while JFK initially lay in state in the East Room of the White House, the public viewing didn't happen until his casket was moved to the Capitol. There, around a quarter of a million people filed past to pay their respects, and his funeral service and burial were held on November 25. 

As for the birthday, that was on November 25 as well. That's the day that John F. Kennedy Jr. turned three years old, and was featured in one of the most iconic photos of the funeral. He saluted his father's coffin as it went by, and photographer Dan Farrell later said (via Town & Country), "It was the saddest thing I've ever seen in my whole life. ... I'm just glad my emotions didn't take over when I was trying to take the picture."

The day prior, Lee Harvey Oswald was being moved by Dallas police when they were approached by local nightclub owner Jack Ruby. Ruby — who was well-known to local authorities for a number of reasons — shot and killed Oswald, making his the first real-life murder to be broadcast live on television. Oswald was buried on the same day as JFK: November 25.

It took one week for America's new president, Lyndon B. Johnson, to appoint and authorize the Warren Commission to thoroughly investigate John F. Kennedy's assassination, and according to a 1972 interview with commission head Chief Justice Earl Warren, (in a PBS interview, reported by The New York Times) LBJ had some major concerns around the state of the world and potential repercussions. Johnson, he said, "told me he felt conditions around the world were so bad at the moment that he thought it might even get us into a war — a nuclear war."

The verdict was released 10 months later, and it's been controversial ever since. In a nutshell, they found that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, he and Jack Ruby hadn't known each other, and that the extreme, right-wing views that had seemed pretty suspicious in hindsight really meant much of anything in the end. 

In the decades that followed, there's been tons of research into the workings of the Warren Commission. In 2013, investigative journalist and author Philip Shenon spoke with CBS News around the release of his book, "A Cruel and Shocking Act: The Secret History of the Kennedy Assassination." He said that he found some facts that seemed to indicate not all was as it seemed — including confirmation from the FBI and CIA that they'd known Oswald was a threat, and that the commission overlooked key parts of his story, including his time in Mexico.

The findings of the Warren Commission were incredibly controversial, and it's generally thought that they pretty much outlined the findings involving Lee Harvey Oswald and an apparent lack of a conspiracy. But they also looked at the Secret Service agents that had been there that day, and when it was noted that they all followed procedures but the president still died, it led to a massive overhaul in the agency.

As noted by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, the commission declared the Secret Service to be "understaffed and underfunded and thus unable to complete its mission of security to the best possible standard." And it was a huge deal that led to the massive expansion of the agency's personnel and budget, along with getting rid of things like open-topped cars. By comparison, that's President Barack Obama's limo — The Beast — pictured.

Also gone? Presidents walking through streets and cities largely unaccompanied, which used to be a surprisingly common sight, pre-Kennedy. The extension of post-presidential protection to Jackie Kennedy also changed how former first families were protected, and when it comes to rules about whether or not the Secret Service has to listen to presidential requests, they sort of don't — not, at least, if they think it will leave their charge open to danger. Hard lessons were learned from the Kennedy assassination, and decades later, it remains among the most famous, most controversial, and most notorious seconds in American history.