I was eight years old. We were out on the playground for midday recess when the teachers came out to tell us and bring us back into the school.

I remember seeing Oswald get shot on live TV a couple of days later, and I remember watching the funeral.

With this being the 60th anniversary of Kennedy's assassination there are, or course, a bunch of programs that look back at the events. I watched this one from National Geographic a few days ago. The interviews with the people who were involved and who are still around were quite good. If you have access to Nat Geo, I recommend it.

https://www.nationalgeographic...k-one-day-in-america

Clint Hill, Jackie's Secret Service agent is still alive and talks about the assassination and his life since then. He's 91.

https://www.npr.org/2023/11/22...cret-service-kennedy

Thanks for the links, wtg.

I've probably told this here before, but I have to be one of the younger people to remember the assassination.

I was almost two. I have a clear recollection of s snapshot-like image of the coffin being unloaded from what I thought was a train. The adults in my life never believed me when I said as a child that I remembered the assassination. They'd say, "You're thinking of his brother," but I knew it was an older memory than that.

When I was in my teens, I finally described the image to my mother, I said that the image was on a black-and-white TV and we got a color TV just a couple of years later. She said, "Well, maybe you do remember. You played on the floor in front of me while I watched TV all day with your baby sister in my lap."

Through the wonders of the internet, I was inspired during the fiftieth anniversary commemorations to try to find the image on archival footage ...and I did! It wasn't a train. It was Air Force One and video from removing the coffin from the plane on the evening of November 22, 1963 is available on YouTube. Here's a still shot from the removal.

Mercifully, I missed that cluster****.

That pretty amazing, MA.

Here's the whole video:

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/...ffin-arrives-in-d-c/

Another documentary I watched was on PBS. Narrated by Jane Pauley, it talks about how the events of the day were reported by the media. This was one of the first breaking news stories covered on television.

JFK: Breaking the News

https://www.pbs.org/video/jfk-...ing-the-news-d7borr/

First grade, the announcement came over the PA from the principal. My teacher cried and we were all sent home early. I understood that something terrible had happened, and that the President had been killed, but I couldn't put it into the appropriate context. For months after, I thought my dad was in danger of being assassinated. For the record, my dad was not then, or ever, the type of person whose role would put him in line for a political assasination.

We were all totally freaked out that our teacher cried.

I was in a high school drafting class. The teacher
turned on a radio when we were doing the drafting.
I was horrible at drafting. I think I only passed because my father was on the school board.


Later in the same class I heard the Beatles for the first time. Someone in the class said they were a band that was quickly becoming very popular.

I was in a freshman economics class at Carnegie Tech. It was a warm day for November. The windows were cracked open and the transom above the hallway door was open.

We became aware of increasing activity in the hallway. Our instructor went out to see why there was so much noise, came back into the room, and told the class that the president had been shot.

Activity in the hallway was also the way I learned of the 9/11 attacks. I was alone in my office with the door open and heard increasing noise. When I stepped out to learn the reason, someone told me there had been terrorist attacks in NYC and DC. I pulled up a news site on the web and saw further details.

Big Al

1963? I can’t imagine that even my parents were around that long ago. How the heck old are you people?

I was probably in my crib or playpen.

I wasn't old enough to be in school yet, but remember my regular TV shows not being on and some boring stuff taking over...

I was in second grade at ... St Brenden's parochial school in Miami. I remember the nuns coming into the room and ordering the class to its knees to pray.

8th grade, on stage, Moliere comedy performance for parents, nobody clapped or laughed.

J