Yahoo News On This Day: JFK's final hours before he was assassinated
This article is part of Yahoo's 'On This Day' series
A light drizzle had fallen in the parking lot outside Hotel Texas in the city of Fort Worth, but that didn’t bother the 8,000 people who had gathered in the rain.
It was the morning of Friday, 22 November 1963, one of the darkest in American history.
The throng were waiting for one person, their president, John F Kennedy.
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“There are no faint hearts in Fort Worth,” he told the sodden crowd when he emerged to rapturous applause at about 8.45am. “And I appreciate your being here this morning.”
Four hours later, he was gone. He was 46 years old.
In truth, the crowd were waiting for two people, and JFK was smart enough to know he wasn’t the only star of the show.
“Mrs Kennedy is organising herself,” he announced to those who had waited in the rain.
“It takes longer, but, of course, she looks better than we do when she does it. We appreciate your welcome.”
Kennedy’s wife Jacqueline would still be wearing her choice of outfit that day, a pink Chanel suit, two hours after her husband was shot in Dallas, stained with his blood as she stood on board Air Force One for the swearing-in of his successor as president, Lyndon B Johnson.
Kennedy was shot in the back and in the head in Dealey Plaza at 12.30pm while riding in the presidential motorcade. He was pronounced dead 30 minutes later.
The images from that day would become emblazoned on to the American public consciousness.
The moment Kennedy was assassinated, the heartbreaking scene on Air Force One featuring a shellshocked Jackie, the shooting on live television two days later of Lee Harvey Oswald, the man charged with the president’s murder, by Jack Ruby… these events would never leave Americans.
That morning 58 years ago, however, it had been business as usual for Kennedy.
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The speech he gave in the parking lot in Fort Worth wasn’t his last - after addressing the crowd he went back inside Hotel Texas to deliver another in the ballroom.
The Kennedys were on a two-day, five-city tour of Texas, a trip that aimed to unite Democrats ahead of the next presidential election.
In the hotel, Kennedy told the Forth Worth Chamber of Commerce: “We are still the keystone in the arch of freedom.
“We will continue to do… our duty, and the people of Texas will be in the lead.”
He again paid tribute to Jackie, hinting he knew he wasn't always the main attraction.
“Two years ago, I introduced myself in Paris by saying that I was the man who had accompanied Mrs Kennedy to Paris," said the president.
“I am getting somewhat the same sensation as I travel around Texas. Nobody wonders what Lyndon and I wear.”
After the speech, the Kennedys and their entourage returned to their hotel suite, as they had time to spare before setting off for the next stop on their trip: Dallas.
In the suite, an aide drew Kennedy’s attention to a negative advert in a local newspaper, according to William Manchester's book, Death Of A President, published four years later in 1967.
Kennedy told Jackie: “We’re heading into nut country today.”
According to the book, Kennedy then foreshadowed his own death, referencing the couple’s chaotic arrival at the hotel at 11.30pm the previous evening.
“Last night would have been a hell of a night to assassinate a president,” he said.
“I mean it. There was the rain, and the night, and we were all getting jostled. Suppose a man had a pistol in a briefcase.”
The Kennedys travelled by motorcade from the hotel that morning to Carswell Air Force Base to take the 13-minute flight to Dallas.
They touched down at Love Field, where the couple spent minutes shaking hands and talking to those gathered.
The rain had stopped. And the plastic bubble top had been left off their vehicle. The Kennedys were accompanied in their car by Governor John Connally and his wife, Nellie. The vice president and his wife were in an another car in the motorcade.
It would take ten minutes to drive to downtown Dallas - Kennedy was scheduled to make a speech at a luncheon at the city’s Trade Mart.
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Just before the shots fired from the Texas School Book Depository building facing Dealey Plaza rang out, Mrs Connally said to Kennedy: "Mr President, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you.”
His reply, “No, you certainly can’t”, are believed to be his last words.
The Warren Commission that investigated the assassination concluded that three shots were fired, one of which missed its target, one passed through Kennedy and hit Mr Connally, who recovered from his wound, while the third hit Kennedy in the head.
Oswald was arrested 70 minutes after the shooting and charged with murdering the president and Dallas police officer JD Tippit, who was shot dead three miles from Dealey Plaza, 45 minutes after Kennedy was shot.
While being transferred from city to county jail two days later, Oswald - who maintained he was a “patsy” for Kennedy’s assassination - was shot in the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters by nightclub owner Jack Ruby.
The shooting was broadcast live on television. Oswald died at Parkland Memorial Hospital, the same hospital where Kennedy was pronounced dead, less than two hours later. Ruby died in prison in 1967.
Kennedy was buried at Arlington National Cemetery on 25 November. More than 16 million people visited the site in its first three years.
His grave is lit with an eternal flame. Jackie, who died of cancer in 1994, is buried alongside her husband.
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