Background
Friday, 22 November 1963. US President John F. Kennedy was riding in a motorcade through Dallas, Texas. As the car travelled along Elm Street in Dealey Plaza at about 12:30 p.m., shots were fired. Texas Governor John Connally was wounded and survived. Kennedy was pronounced dead at Parkland Memorial Hospital at 1:00 p.m.
Kennedy had taken office in 1961.
What happened
Lee Harvey Oswald, a former Marine, was taken into custody; investigators concluded he fired from the Texas School Book Depository. At 1:12 p.m. Dallas police officer J. D. Tippit was killed, and Oswald was arrested at the Texas Theatre. He denied the shootings and said he was a "patsy."
On 24 November nightclub operator Jack Ruby shot Oswald in the basement of Dallas police headquarters during a live television broadcast, and Oswald died. Ruby's conviction was overturned on appeal and he died in 1967 before a retrial.
Oswald was questioned by Dallas police and denied the charges throughout. No trial took place, because he was killed two days later.
Investigation and findings
The Warren Commission's 888-page report in 1964 concluded that Oswald acted alone. It relied on the "single-bullet theory," which some commissioners privately considered improbable.
In 1979 the US House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that Kennedy was probably assassinated as the result of a conspiracy and that there was a high probability two gunmen fired; it named no conspirators. Its finding rested largely on a police radio recording whose analysis the Justice Department later discredited.
Though widely accepted at first, the Commission's conclusions were increasingly questioned by citizens and researchers, which led Congress to open a new inquiry in the 1970s.
Where it stands today
The official bodies reached different conclusions and debate continues. A 1992 law accelerated the release of related records. The assassination remains one of the most closely studied events in American history.
The assassination reshaped how Americans viewed security, the media and their government. Thousands of books and documentaries have followed, but no definitive, undisputed conclusion has been reached.