50 Years Ago Today

On Nov. 11, 1963, President Kennedy laid a Veterans Day wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery.
He would be buried at the cemetery exactly two weeks later.
Jacqueline Kennedy rarely traveled with her husband on political trips but decided to fly with him to Texas on Nov. 21.
A 14-year-old boy reported watching JFK's face go blank around 12:30 p.m. on Nov. 22.
The boy also said he heard Jacqueline Kennedy shout, "God, oh God, no."
This was the fourth presidential assassination in a nation that was less than 200 years old.
It was the first since the Secret Service began protecting presidents.
The Service scuffled with Dallas police for control of the president's casket.
Judge Sarah Hughes wept as she administered the oath of office.
Jackie Kennedy refused to take off her pink Chanel suit, stained with her husband's blood. She told Lady Bird Johnson, "I want them to see what they have done to Jack."
Jackie's suit has never been cleaned and lies in the National Archives.
It will not be seen in public until at least 2103, according to Kennedy family wishes.
At the time, assassination of a president was not a federal offense; Oswald would have been tried in Texas.
Oswald's murder by Jack Ruby on Nov. 24 was the first homicide caught on live television.
The New York Times reported that JFK's 98-year-old grandmother, Mary Josephine Fitzgerald, was not told of the assassination.
In Washington, dignitaries from more than 100 countries arrived for Kennedy's funeral. At the time, it was the largest gathering of its kind on U.S. soil.
An unexpected 250,000 people paid their respects to the former president as he lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda.
Tens of thousands were turned away, some having waited throughout a near-freezing night in a line that stretched for more than 2 miles.
Jackie Kennedy modeled her husband's funeral ceremonies after Abraham Lincoln's.
The funeral day, Nov. 25, was also John Jr.'s third birthday.
Caroline would turn 6 two days later.
A taxi driver reported that the funeral crowds were oddly quiet: "… you could hear a pin drop."

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