Trip to Dallas…and a revisit to history.
Sometimes it’s nice to have a change, get a break and go and do something different. This week I’ve been to Dallas for a convention and I always like to go a little early so I can explore the local area a little. On this trip I discovered the Sixth Floor Museum and having not been born at the time of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, I was keen to learn more about the events and more importantly the effect it had on the United States.
The assassination of John F. Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, took place on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas at 12.30pm Central Standard Time in Dealey Plaza. Kennedy was fatally shot while riding with his wife Jacqueline, Texas Governor John Connally and his wife Nellie in the Presidential motorcade.
After a ten-month investigation and several other government investigations, it was concluded that the President was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, who, in turn, was then murdered by Jack Ruby before he could stand trial. This conclusion was initially met with support among the American public, but polls conducted from 1966 on show as many as 80% of the American public have held beliefs contrary to these findings. The assassination is still the subject of widespread debate and has spawned numerous conspiracy theories and alternative scenarios but the truth is that no-one will ever really know what really happened.
What seems indisputable was that Oswald was on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository and that he had a rifle. When the Presidential limousine turned and passed the Depository and continued down Elm Street, shots were fired at Kennedy. Kennedy was hit in the head and as a result the motorcade quickly rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital where at 1pm President Kennedy was pronounced dead from the shot wounds he suffered.
To this day, there is all kinds of speculation about a second shooter from the grassy knoll area on the north side of Elm Street but nothing has ever been proved. I can say though that just being in the area and seeing the two crosses that are marked on the street where the bullets were fired is slightly eerie. The tour of the Sixth Floor Museum is well worth doing and it certainly recaptures the era and the feelings of a whole nation not to mention the whole world of that sad day in history. If you’re in Dallas anytime soon, check it out and also check out the John F. Kennedy Memorial and the Old Red Courthouse that is close by.
