A montage of TV and radio bulletins from November 22, 1963:

I am among the generation that was sitting in a classroom when the principal interrupted our day with the announcement that the President had been shot. About 10 minutes later the principal came back on to tell us the president was dead. Then a few minutes later he came on to say school was dismissed. And that the local newspaper would like some help selling newspapers downtown.

Perhaps one of the most memorable bits of TV ever is the clip at @ 8 minutes of Walter Cronkite’s announcement that the President was dead.

That weekend was perhaps one of the strangest ever in the United States.  We had never had such stunning news shared so widely and so quickly. We were all deer in the headlight zombies. I think most of us went home to keep our eyes on the TV – maybe waiting for the announcement that this was all a dream or a play.

But it wasn’t. It was real. The young and vivacious President was dead. Lyndon Johnson was now President. Camelot was suddenly ended. The dreams were gone. Even as an early teen I knew this was big.

We have heard that Kennedy would have pulled us out of Viet Nam. Johnson plunged us deeply into the conflict. Stalled Civil Rights legislation that would greatly change the country were finally able to get through congress. Those were a couple of immediate consequences of Kennedy’s death.

So many years ago, yet the memories are still fresh.