Essay Preview: 1960
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Popular culture did more harm than good in the 1960s because John F. Kennedy became president of the United States. Aged 43 at the time of his election in 1960, he was also the youngest person ever elected to the countrys highest office, although he was not the youngest to serve in it. Theodore Roosevelt was not quite 43 when the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901 elevated him to the presidency. Like McKinley, Kennedy was to die at the hands of an assassin.
On November 22, 1963, President Kennedy went to Dallas Texas on a campaign trip. It was a beautiful morning and the President was getting ready to travel to the hall for the speech. Mrs. Kennedy rode in the car with the President. Shots rang out. The President had been shot. Less than an hour later, the announcement was made that JFK had been killed. The country was in shock. A man, Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested and charged with killing the President. Two days later, in the Dallas police station, Oswald was shot and killed by Jack Ruby. The President was dead, the assassin was dead.
DALLAS (AP)-President Kennedy was shot today just as his motorcade left downtown Dallas. Mrs. Kennedy jumped up and grabbed Mr. Kennedy. She cried, “Oh, No!” The motorcade sped on.
Kennedy was reported taken to Parkland Hospital, near the Dallas Trade Mart, where he was to have made a speech.
Bell reported three shots were fired as the motorcade entered the triple underpass which leads to the Stemmons Freeway route to Parkland Hospital.
Pandemonium broke loose around the scene. The secret service waved the motorcade on at top speed to the hospital. Even at high speed it took nearly five minutes to get the car to the ambulance entrance of the hospital.
Mrs. Kennedy saw what had happened to her husband. She grabbed him exclaiming, “Oh, No!”
The car driver realized what had happened and almost as if by reflex speeded up toward to Stemmons Expressway. There seemed to be utter confusion.
One motorcycle officer ran his cycle into the curb, almost falling off.
Police came from everywhere as the Presidents car disappeared from sight