JFK’s Funeral

• Millions across America followed the funeral on television. The television audience was

particularly high, as virtually the entire nation was at home viewing the proceedings.

• Approximately one million people lined the route of the funeral procession, from the Capitol back to the White House, then to St. Matthew's

Cathedral, & finally to Arlington National Cemetery.

All work stopped for Kennedy’s funeral as America mourned its fallen leader

The Eternal Flame

After the assassination of the President, Jackie Kennedy, requested an eternal flame for her

husband’s gravesite.

She was inspired by the eternal flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe in

Paris, which she had seen during a visit to France in

1961

Curse of Tippecanoe

• This angered the Shawnee chief Tecumseh and brought government soldiers and Native Americans to the brink of war. As a result, Tecumseh and his

brother organized a group of Indian tribes designed to resist white westward expansion.

• In 1811, Harrison successfully attacked Tecumseh’s village in which Harrison defeated the

Shawnee leaders Tecumseh.

• The name "Curse of Tippecanoe" derives from the 1811 battle.

• As governor of the Indiana Territory, William Harrison bribed Native Americans to cede their lands to

the U.S. government and handed out whiskey that caused alcoholism to run rampant among Indians.

The Library of Congress conducted a study in the summer of 1980 about the origin of the tale, and concluded that "although the story has been well-known for years, there are no

documented sources and no published mentions of it".

Supposedly, the Prophet set a curse against Harrison and

future White House occupants.

Elected

President Term of

death

Cause of death Date of death

1840 William Henry

Harrison

First Pneumonia 04-04-1841

1860 Abraham Lincoln

Second Assassinated 04-15-1865

1880 James A. Garfield

First Assassinated 09-19-1881

1900 William McKinley

Second Assassinated 09-14-1901

1920 Warren G. Harding

First Uncertain: Heart attack or stroke

08-02-1923

1940 Franklin D. Roosevelt

Fourth Cerebral hemorrhage 04-12-1945

1960 John F. Kennedy

First Assassinated 11-22-1963

1980 Ronald Reagan

n/a Attempted assassination - injured but not killed

Didn’t die in office

2000 George W. Bush

n/a Attempted assassination - not injured

Currently in office

The Lone Gunman Theory

Also known as the Single Bullet Theory

or Magic Bullet Theory

The theory, generally credited to Warren

Commission staffer Arlen Specter (now a U.S. Senator from PA), says that a single bullet, known as "Warren Commission Exhibit 399", caused all of the non-fatal wounds in both President

Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connally. The fatal head wound to the President

was caused by another bullet.

• While waiting across the street from the Book Depository for the motorcade, Howard Brennan noticed a man at the southeast corner window

of the sixth floor of the Depository.

• Just after the President's car passed, he heard what he thought was a firecracker or an explosion. He looked up

at the window again & saw the man with a gun, aiming & taking a final shot.

• Within minutes of the assassination, Brennan described the man to the police. He later testified that Lee Harvey Oswald, who he viewed in a police lineup

on the night of the assassination, was the man he saw fire the shot.

Witnesses say…

Bonnie Ray Williams and two co-workers watching the motorcade from fifth floor windows of the Depository

heard three shots come from the floor above, and reverberations shook plaster from the ceiling onto his

head.

Governor John Connally, Mrs. Connally, and the two Secret Service agents in the presidential limousine

all testified that the shots came from the direction of the Book Depository.

Marilyn Sitzman was standing retaining wall 15 yards east of the 5-foot high picket fence on the grassy knoll. She stated that she saw no gunman firing from behind

the picket fence: "The blast of a high-powered rifle would have blown me off that wall."

Charles Hester, Emmett Hudson & Marilyn Sitzman, the only witnesses on the Grassy Knoll who gave testimony about

the direction of the shots, all said the shots came from the direction of the Texas School Book Depository.

Of the EARwitnesses, 99 believed that all the shots came from one direction, and only 5 believed they came from

two directions

Lee Harvey Oswald• Former Marine who moved to the Soviet Union and later returned• Oswald was arrested on suspicion of killing Dallas police officer J. D. Tippit• Oswald did work at the Texas School Book Depository• Ties to Communist Organizations supporting Cuba

• Used a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle in the assassination of JFK

Convicted on 3/14/1964 for the

murder of Lee Harvey Oswald on 11/24/1963, two

days after Oswald was arrested for

the assassination of President John F.

Kennedy.

Jack Ruby

He successfully appealed his conviction and sentence of death. As a date for his new trial

was being set, he became ill and died.

• A number of writers have suspected Jack Ruby of being linked to organized crime, and some have gone on to hypothesize that his

alleged links were evidence of conspiracy to kill Oswald and/or JFK.

• When Ruby was arrested immediately after the shooting, he told several witnesses that his killing of Oswald would helped the city of Dallas "redeem" itself in the eyes of the public, and that Oswald's death would spare Jackie Kennedy the ordeal of

appearing at Oswald's trial

• Other critics do not believe that he had any connections to organized crime. The Warren

Commission had said that they found he had no connections, the House Committee finds

otherwise.