Assassination timeline
- 7.23am: Oswald goes to work Lee Harvey Oswald, an employee at the Texas book depository building in Dallas goes to work with Buell Wesley Frazier, a young worker there. Frazier asks about the long, paper-wrapped package in Oswald’s arms, to which Oswald says: “Oh, just some curtains.”
- 11.30am: Arrival in Dallas Air Force One lands at Love Field in Dallas and the disembarking President Kennedy and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy are met by the press and a crowd of Texans.
- 11.45am: The motorcade The Kennedy's join Texas governor John Connally, his wife, Nellie, in an open-air limousine. Vice-president Lyndon Johnson and his wife ride in another limo nearby.
- noon: Downtown Dallas The motorcade heads for downtown Dallas, passing through crowds estimated at over 150,000 people.
- 12.29pm: Dealey plaza As the limo enters Dealey Plaza, Nellie Connally turned to the president and remarked, “Mr President, you can’t say Dallas doesn’t love you.”
- 12.30pm: Assassination A bullet strikes the president in the back while he waves, followed by a second shot to the back of his head. Another shot severely wounds the governor.
- 12.31pm: Reaction, and Oswald departs Hearing what he initially thought to be a firecracker, secret service agent Clinton Hill sees the president recoil from the first shot. He runs from the follow-up car, but when he reaches the limousine the second shot hits the president, and the agent leaps aboard too late.
- Patrolman Marrion Baker confronts Oswald in the depository cafeteria, but the building superintendent vouches for him. Oswald walks seven blocks, boards a city bus, and eventually gets into a cab at the bus depot.
- 1pm: Parkland hospital Doctors are unable to save the president, who arrived ‘moribund’. One says: ‘We never had any hope of saving his life.’ A Catholic priest administered last rites and the first lady reportedly held her husband’s hand and placed one of her rings onto his finger.
- 1pm: Oswald's flight Oswald walks back to his rooming house, changes his jacket there for one more lightly colored, and heads back into the street.
- 1.15pm: Officer Tippit killed Police officer JD Tippit pulls up to Oswald in his car, after having heard of a suspect matching his description. After briefly speaking through an open window, Tippit stepped out of his car and was shot three times in the chest and once in the temple. Twelve people witnessed a man fleeing the scene, and six later identified Oswald in police lineups.
- 1.22pm: On the sixth floor Police find a rifle behind a stack of books in the room from which the assassin fired.
- 1.30pm: Texas Theater Hearing sirens, Oswald ducks into the Texas Theater without paying, and takes a seat for the movie War is Hell. Police receive a tip from the area about a suspicious man matching their description for Tippit’s murderer.
- 1.33pm: Kennedy announced dead The assistant White House press secretary announces the president’s death, which the press reports in real time.