John F. Kennedy Assassination’s 50th Anniversary: Where Were You When You First Heard The News?

The 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy looms upon American citizens this November 22nd. It will be a time of mourning, a time of commemoration and a time for pondering the legacy of John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

November looks to be fraught with Kennedy documentaries, from people recalling where they were and what they were doing when news of President Kennedy’s assassination broke to examining the historical impact of the first Irish-Catholic President of the United States and youngest-ever to enter the White House.

“Where Were You,” a Kennedy documentary slated to air on NBC at 9 p.m. on November 22, chronicles the impact of John F. Kennedy’s assassination in several first-person accounts. Narrated by Tom Brokaw and produced by 60 Minutes veteran Harry Moses, illustrates the nature of the Kennedy assassination and how, like the moon landing, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the September 11 terror attacks, those who lived through it will always recall the time they first heard the news.

“The idea kind of popped into my head,” Moses told Kathryn Boughton of the Litchfield County Times. “For anyone five years over the age of 50 it is the one event everyone knows.”

“Killing Kennedy,” a documentary based on the bestselling book by Bill O’Reilly, debuts November 10 on the National Geographic Channel. It stars Rob Lowe as President John F. Kennedy and Ginnifer Goodwin as First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and is expected to be “the centerpiece of the programming when it premieres,” according to The Courant’s Roger Catlin. Director Nelson McCormick shared his own memory of the hearing the news.

“I was very young but what I remember is that on Saturday morning all the TV stations that normally had the cartoons I watch were taken up with the coverage,” McCormick recalled. “Something was wrong. There was a silence in the house, a somberness I didn’t understand.”

In a story by Bill Brioux, with the Canadian Press, several stars shared where they were when they first heard of the Kennedy assassination.

NCIS‘s Mark Harmon said, “I think I was in fourth or fifth grade. No TV set, just an announcement. I just remember as a kid being impacted where the room was quiet.

Where were you when you heard about President John F. Kennedy’s assassination? How has President Kennedy’s death impacted history? What other global events have had an impact as great as President John Kennedy’s assassination?