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 Kennedys 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. A man in the crowd, Abraham Zapruder, happens to film the sequence on his home-movie camera.
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.
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.
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.
1.22pm: On the sixth floor
Police find a rifle behind a stack of books in the room from which the assassin fired.
1.30pm: Texas Theatre
Hearing sirens, Oswald ducks into the Texas Theatre 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.
1.45pm: Oswald arrested
Fifteen police officers surround the movie theater, and four officers are needed to subdue Oswald inside. At 1.51pm police report him in custody.
2pm: Evidence
Dallas police’s parafin tests confirm that Oswald recently fired a gun. Oswald’s wife later confirms that the rifle found in the depository belongs to her husband.
2.20pm: Air Force One
The hearse carrying the president arrives at Air Force One, with the first lady sitting next to the bronze coffin.
2.30pm: Questioning
Interrogated for almost 12 hours, Oswald denies throughout that he had anything to do with either murder. Confronted with photos of himself holding a rifle and pistol, Oswald "sneered, saying that they were fake photographs … [taken] by the police, that they had superimposed upon the photographs a rifle and revolver." He eventually stops answering all questions.
2.38pm: Lyndon B Johnson sworn in
Vice-president Johnson is sworn in as president on JFK’s Bible while standing in a cramped compartment of Air Force One, next to his wife and Mrs Kennedy.
2.47: Onboard
Air Force One leaves Dallas, and as the plane approaches Washington DC, Mrs Kennedy makes funeral plans and Johnson speaks with advisers. Mrs Kennedy replies to Lady Bird Johnson’s suggestion to change out of her blood-stained dress by saying “Oh no, that’s all right. I want them to see what they have done to Jack.”
7pm ET: First words
Air Force One lands at Andrews air force base in Maryland and Johnson meets the press assembled outside for his first statements as president: “I will do my best. That's all I can do. I ask for your help and God's.”
7.05pm: The family
Robert Kennedy meets the plane and he and Mrs Kennedy go to Bethesda Naval Hospital, where the body has an autopsy and is prepared for the funeral.
7.10pm CT: 'Murder with malice'
Oswald is charged with Tippit's murder.
11.28pm: Oswald charged
Oswald is formally charged with Kennedy's assassination
November 23: 3.56am ET:
The president’s casket is placed in the East Room of the White House, where it stays under honor guard for 24 hours. Over 250,000 people, including dignitaries from over 90 countries, attend the funeral a few days later.
