11:55 a.m

Central Standard Time—Motorcade leaves Love Field.

12:30 p.m

John F. Kennedy is shot twice, once in the upper back and once in the head; Gov. John Connally also is wounded by rifle fire.

12:38 p.m

Television networks begin reporting the shooting.

12:58 p.m

Priests arrive at Parkland Hospital to perform last rites for president.

1 p.m

Doctors at the hospital declare JFK dead.

1:12 p.m

Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit is shot and killed.

1:33 p.m

Malcolm Kilduff announces Kennedy’s death to nation.

1:39 p.m

Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson reach Air Force One.

1:50 p.m

Police arrest Lee Harvey Oswald.

2:04 p.m

Coffin leaves Parkland Hospital.

2:14 p.m

Coffin reaches Air Force One at Love Field.

2:38 p.m

Judge Sarah Hughes administers oath of office, officially making Lyndon Johnson the 36th president of the United States.

2:47 p.m

Air Force One leaves Dallas.

5:58 p.m

Eastern Standard Time—Air Force One reaches Andrews Air Force Base.

6:26 p.m

Helicopter carrying Johnsons, McGeorge Bundy, and Robert McNamara lands at White House.

6:55 p.m

President Kennedy’s body reaches Bethesda Naval Hospital.

7:35 p.m

Autopsy begins.

Midnight

Eastern Standard Time—Pathologists near end of autopsy; embalmers ready to begin their work.

2:56 a.m

Kennedy party leaves hospital with coffin en route to White House.

10 a.m

Kennedy family and friends attend mass in While House’s East Room; more than seven hours of visitation follow.

3:51 p.m

President Lyndon Johnson declares Monday, November 25 a national day of mourning.

11:45 a.m

Caisson leaves White House for Capitol.

12:21 p.m. (11:21 p.m. Central Standard Time)

Jack Ruby shoots Lee Harvey Oswald during transfer to county jail; police capture Ruby.

2:02 p.m

Eulogies begin in Capitol rotunda.

2:16 p.m. (1:16 p.m. Central Standard Time)

Oswald dies, almost exactly two days after Kennedy’s death.

8:25 a.m

Eastern Standard Time—Police cut off line of people waiting to view coffin in Capitol rotunda.

9 a.m

Lying in state ends as bronze doors of Capitol close.

10:39 a.m

Jacqueline, Robert, and Edward Kennedy arrive at Capitol, kneel beside coffin.

10:43 a.m

Military pallbearers raise coffin from catafalque, carry it to caisson, where it is placed five minutes later.

10:50 a.m

Cortege leaves Capitol Plaza, joining military units on Constitution Avenue for procession and moving toward White House at 11 a.m.

11 a.m

Ruby is transferred to county jail without incident.

11:35 a.m

Cortege reaches White House

11:40 a.m

Walking procession led by Jacqueline Kennedy and brothers-in-law Robert and Edward gets under way for St Matthew’s Cathedral; participants include world and national dignitaries.

12:13 p.m

Cathedral doors close as mass begins.

1:15 p.m

Mass ends; cathedral doors open.

1:30 p.m

Caisson resumes procession to Arlington National Cemetery.

2:43 p.m

Caisson reaches cemetery.

3:08 a.m

Army bugler sounds taps at Arlington Cemetery.

3:15 p.m

Mrs Kennedy lights eternal flame and receives flag previously covering coffin.

3:34 p.m

Coffin is lowered into grave.

March 1

Jack Ruby is convicted of murdering Lee Harvey Oswald, sentenced to electric chair.

July

Civil Rights Act becomes law.

August

Congress passes Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

November

Lyndon B. Johnson is reelected president in landslide over Barry Goldwater.
Robert F. Kennedy is elected to US Senate representing the state of New York

February 2

Johnson OKs sending two battalions of US marines as fighting men, not advisers, to Vietnam.

March

Operation Rolling Thunder, major bombing campaign against North Vietnam, begins.

April 2

Johnson sends US troops to Dominican Republic.

July

Johnson signs Freedom of Information Act, opening door to document-by-document declassification of assassination records.

Aug. 1

New York Times reviews Mark Lane’s Rush to Judgment, which will become the year’s top-selling hardback book.

Oct.

Appellate court orders new trial for Jack Ruby.

January

Ruby dies of cancer.

March 1

Johnson narrowly defeats Eugene McCarthy in New Hampshire primary.

March 1

Robert F. Kennedy enters race for Democratic presidential nomination.

March 3

Johnson announces he will not seek reelection.

April

Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated in Memphis; race riots break out in cities all over the nation.

June

Robert F. Kennedy is shot after winning California primary and dies the next day.

August 26–2

Police and protesters clash in Chicago outside Democratic National Convention.

November

Richard Nixon defeats Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace to win presidency.

August

Richard Nixon resigns in disgrace after evidence shows he participated in a criminal cover-up of information related to the Watergate break-in; Gerald Ford becomes president.

January

In wake of Watergate revelations about CIA activities, Gerald Ford names Commission on CIA Activities within the United States, later known as the Rockefeller Commission.

January

The so-called Church committee begins a Senate investigation of intelligence activity, eventually uncovering CIA plots to kill foreign leaders, including Cuba’s Fidel Castro.

June

Rockefeller Commission issues report; dismisses possibility of CIA involvement in assassination.