John F. Kennedy, who had beaten Richard Nixon in the 1960 presidential election by a wafer-thin margin, had come to Dallas, Texas to kick off his 1964 re-election campaign. He had barely won Texas in 1960 despite having Texan Lyndon Baines Johnson on the ticket as his Vice-President.
At just 43-years-old, Kennedy was the youngest-ever candidate elected to the presidency.
The President and Mrs Kennedy had taken their seats in an open limousine, sitting behind Texas Governor John Connally and his wife Nellie, and their motorcade had set off to travel slowly through the streets of Dallas.
Crowds of cheering, waving and smiling patriots lined the route. Among the crowd was Abraham Zapruder, a Dallas dressmaker and Russian immigrant who loved making home movies.
He wanted to record the President’s visit to the city for his wife and children to see. With an 8 millimeter home-movie camera, he stood on a concrete ledge. As the limousines came into view on Elm Street in Dealey Plaza, he began filming.
His silent color footage of 486 frames lasted just 26 seconds.
Three shots rang out at 12.30pm. The first is believed to have missed the motorcade. The second tore through the President’s throat and went on to injure Governor Connally. The third shot completed the assassination.
The section of the Zapruder film which records this event was not released for years after the assassination due to its gruesome nature. It was first seen in a heavily criticised showing by ABC News in 1975.
Nearly 25 years later the government paid the Zapruder family $16 million to preserve the film in the National Archives.
JFK’s body was taken from the hospital to the presidential aircraft Air Force One and a flight to Washington. Before takeoff a judge was called aboard and Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as the 36th President of the United States.
One of his first acts was to order an official inquiry into the assassination. Johnson appointed some of the nation’s most prominent figures to handle the inquiry, which became known as the Warren Commission after its chairman, Earl Warren.
He was then the Chief Justice of the United States.
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