There are fewer and fewer of us around who were sentient, adult or semi-adult beings when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. I was a sophomore in high school in geometry class when the school principal came over the PA and told us. The whole world ground to a halt for the next few days. And the world wasn’t the same after that.
Today I had a class with a man my age who was born in Argentina. He said he and his mom were at a movie in a movie theater in Argentina on November 22, 1963. When the news of Kennedy’s assassination became known, the movie was stopped, the theater owner came out and announced it, the theater was closed and everyone went home. Can you imagine ANY event today that would cause a movie theater to be shut down in the middle of the day on the other side of the world?
It’s impossible to convey what a huge, shocking impact that event had on the world of 1963. You had to be there. It’s not just that Kennedy and his wife were popular figures–it’s that an act like an assassination was unthinkable. This was a post WWII world that did not know that the future held suicide bombings, beheadings, terrorism, and mass murder. Yes, the country was still recovering from WWII, but that was war. And it was over and had been over for almost 20 years. There was also no “instant news.” You read the news in the newspaper or watched on TV for half an hour (ini black and white) at dinner time. You didn’t know what was going on every single minute everywhere all at once. And you didn’t need to.
Coincidence: I was a junior, sitting in algebra class when it was announced. Come to think of it, it wasn’t really announced; rather, they turned on the PA system and set a radio next to it. I remember lots of girls crying and everyone else in shock, except for the jackass next to me who grinned and said “I always liked Nixon better.”
I was in sixth grade. They made an announcement during recess over the PA that he’d been shot.
Later, they announced his death. We were in class.
School didn’t let out early. I went to my cub scouts meeting and the rumors came in, notably that they caught the shooter.
The rest of the weekend we watched the coverage on TV. I was watching live when Oswald was shot. Year later, I realized I had actually witnessed a murder as it happened.
Why was a Presidential assassination unthinkable when Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, and William McKinley had been assassinated and there were other unsuccessful attempts?
When I was a kid, I heard over and over and over from adults the stories of where they were when they heard the news of Kennedy’s assassination. I also heard over and over “Everybody remembers where they were and what they were doing when they found out Kennedy had been shot.”
But as I get older and older, the stories about where people were when they found out have gotten narrower and narrower- to the point where now, the only stories I ever hear are “I was in school and…” most people old enough not to have been at school aren’t alive anymore.
Because no President had been assassinated since 1901. Yes, FDR and Truman had been targets, but those attempts had failed, which is what was supposed to happen. Teddy Roosevelt had been shot, but he gave his scheduled speech before he even went to the hospital. Those events were in history books, not taking place in real time before an entire nation.
Why was 9/11 unthinkable when terrorists had attacked before?
Yep, I was in school, too. Seventh grade. Social Studies class went off as usual during last period, but then I returned to homeroom to conclude the day and found the teacher and many of the kids in tears. A fellow student informed me as to what had happened, and I was incredulous. The weekend was a blur, including Sunday’s killing of Lee Harvey Oswald, and we had no school on the following Monday because the president’s funeral was to be broadcast on TV. As others have noted, the world changed that day, and a certain type of innocence was never seen again.
I’m another who was in school, in second grade. I remember the principal coming into our class and speaking quietly with Miss Swenson, who immediately burst into tears. The principal, struggling with tears himself, turned to us and said we were all excused to go home because President Kennedy had been shot. At that time, it had not yet been determined that he had died.
I remember trying to take it all in, walking home through the park and down the streets to my home. My dad had called in sick to work and hadn’t yet heard. When I got home (slightly sooner than my brother), he asked me why I wasn’t in school. I said, “The president has been shot!” He exclaimed, “Oh, my god!” and immediately turned on the tee vee. I remember watching Walter Cronkite who, fighting his own emotions, announced that President Kennedy had died.
It felt like the worst day that had ever dawned.
For the rest of that day and for several days that followed, our television was constantly on and we were glued to it. Everyone was just stunned and sad. No one seemed to know what to do. Like RealityChuck, I remember when Oswald was shot on live television and we did not quite understand what we had just witnessed. I mean, we knew, but our brains just couldn’t quite accept it. Violence on television in those days was cartoonish cowboys and Indians, or Superman fake-slugging it out with a bad guy.
I remember watching the funeral, John John’s salute, the riderless horse with the boots turned backward and JFK’s flag-draped coffin, drawn by more horses. Thousands of people lined the streets. We all cried right along with them.
I’ve been thinking all day that 11/22 sounds familiar, as if it was somehow significant. Well, maybe not ‘all day’, but a couple of times throughout the day.
I was in first grade. They announced the president was shot and we were let out of school early. I was only six and didn’t know much about the world outside of my immediate neighborhood. I got a crash course that weekend. And like most other houses that weekend, Uncle Walter came into our living room and spoke to us.
Coincidentally, this month marks Walter Cronkite’s 100th birthday.
I was 9, in 4th grade. I can still see the classroom and still feel the shock when the principal made the announcement over the intercom. I remember being at my friend Patty’s house on the day of his funeral - watching it on the black and white TV.
It was the day I grew up sooner than a 9-y/o should - a little of my naive innocence died with him.
Just recently I’d attended the funeral of my great grandmother and learned/realized that grown-ups cried. I hadn’t known that.
It wasn’t announced over the PA. We’d already heard he’d been shot. Then the principal went to each class and gave the news personally. I thought he looked like he wanted to cry, and our teacher too. She was pregnant, within a month of delivery, and I’ll bet that really hurt.
I watched the funeral procession on TV. My mother taught me about the symbolism of the riderless horse, when it was led by. First time I’d seen that.
Walking my future wife to class at college and hitching a ride back to my Physical Chemistry lab. Guy in the car said “did you hear–the President was shot.” Class was canceled. As others said, we spent the weekend watching black and white tv. It was as devastating at that time as 9/11 in 2001.
I was four years old, but although my mother has often “reminded” me that our neighbor Mrs. M ran over and related the news, I don’t actually remember the day.