Forty-seven years ago yesterday – on Nov. 22, 1963, at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time – our world was shocked when Lee Harvey Oswald fired a fatal rifle shot from the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas, taking the life of the 35th president of the United States, John F. Kennedy, as Kennedy rode past a grassy knoll in the back seat of an open car in a motorcade.
Texas Gov. John Connally was wounded but survived.
But the horrors were not over.
Oswald was arrested shortly after the assassination of Kennedy. Oswald denied shooting anyone. He said he had been arrested because he had previously lived in the Communist Soviet Union.
But there never was to be a trial.
Two days after the murder of the president, Oswald was being moved from the Dallas Police Headquarters to jail – when nightclub owner Jack Ruby intervened, shooting Oswald to death.
The reaction of the American people after the assassination of the president proved the stability of our nation. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was hastily sworn in as the 36th president of the United States, in accord with our Constitution. A special commission headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren was established to investigate the circumstances surrounding the assassination. Conspiracy theories have persisted.
But the ship of our American state sails on, steadily if not tranquilly. Our country has survived several tragic deaths of our presidents, as Americans pray there will be no other such terrible events.