November 22, 1963
12.29pm Central Standard Time: The presidential motorcade turns onto Dealey Plaza in Dallas. The open-top limousine has a driver and security guard in the front row, Texas Governor John Connally and wife Nellie Connally in the middle row, and President John F Kennedy and wife Jacqueline in the back row.
12.30pm: Witnesses testified that three shots were fired. The famous video recording of the event filmed by onlooker Abraham Zapruder shows that first Kennedy clutches his chest and seems to gasp before another shot hits his head. Governor Connally is also hit. Mrs Kennedy immediately begins climbing towards the back of the vehicle, apparently in an effort to grab part of the President’s skull which flew back after he was shot. The Connallys reported that Mrs Kennedy said ‘I’ve got his brains in my hand!’
12.33pm: Shooter Lee Harvey Oswald exits the Texas School Book Depository, where he fired the shots from a sixth floor window.
12.38pm: The presidential limo arrives at Parkland Hospital.
1pm: President Kennedy is pronounced dead. A Catholic priest had been found and he performed his last rites. Doctors said that while they tried extremely hard to save his life, the wounds were too great by the time he arrived in the hospital. ‘We never had any hope of saving his life,’ said Dr. Malcolm Perry.
1.15pm: Oswald shoots and kills police officer J.D. Tippit while he is on the run.
1.33pm: White House press secretary Malcolm Kilduff entered the area of the hospital where the press had gathered and made a brief statement confirming the President’s death, as caused by a gunshot wound to the brain.
1.50pm: Oswald is arrested inside the Texas Theater movie house where he went in an effort to evade capture.
2.00pm: President Kennedy’s body was brought to Air Force One.
2.38pm: Lyndon Baines Johnson was sworn in as the country’s 36th president on board Air Force One, standing next to Mrs Kennedy who continued to wear the blood-stained pink skirt suit that she had on earlier.
3.01pm: FBI director J. Edgar Hoover writes a memo saying that the President’s killer had been captured.
6pm Eastern Standard Time: The plane arrives at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington. President Kennedy’s casket and Mrs Kennedy leave first before President Johnson makes a brief statement on the tarmac. ‘This is a sad time for all people….I will do my best; that is all I can do. I ask for your help and God’s,’ he said.
7.05pm CST: Oswald is charged with the murder of Officer Tippit.
11.26pm: Oswald is charged with the murder of President Kennedy.
Two days later, November 24, 1963
11:21am: Television cameras catch nightclub owner Jack Ruby shoot Oswald in the basement of the Dallas Police headquarters.