One Day in Dallas

Where were you the day Kennedy was shot?  An oft asked question for those that remember 22 November fifty years ago. I don’t remember the day, though I have a pretty good clue as to what I was doing: it was my second birthday. I was probably eating a bowl of jelly.

Imagine if such news like this broke today with instant worldwide communications and rolling news channels. How different it was in 1963 when listeners to BBC radio got this 30-second story of the shooting from newsreader Jimmy Kingsbury before moving on with “the rest of the news”.

In this sound montage you’ll hear a brief reminder of John F. Kennedy’s election to the presidency in 1960 and then radio and TV actuality from November 1963. The recordings are taken from US radio coverage, BBC radio and TV and include Leonard Parkin's first report for that evening's edition of Radio Newsreel.


Tonight BBC Radio 2 remembers the events of 22 November 1963 as they happened in JFK: Minute by Minute. CBSNews.com will be streaming the original news coverage in real time over four days from the shooting to the funeral.