The assassination of John F. Kennedy refers to the killing of the 35th President of the United States on 22 November 1963 in Dallas, Texas, while he rode in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. Kennedy was struck by gunfire and was pronounced dead at Parkland Memorial Hospital approximately thirty minutes after the shooting. Texas Governor John Connally, riding in the same vehicle, was also wounded but survived. The event triggered a federal investigation, altered the course of American political history, and remains among the most studied and debated events of the 20th century.

Kennedy was traveling through Dallas as part of a political trip to Texas, aimed at unifying competing factions of the state's Democratic Party ahead of the 1964 presidential election. The motorcade route had been published in local newspapers in advance. Kennedy rode in an open-top limousine with First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, Governor Connally, and Connally's wife. Shots were fired as the motorcade passed the Texas School Book Depository on Elm Street. Kennedy was struck in the upper back and in the head; the head wound proved fatal.

Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as president aboard Air Force One later that day, with Jacqueline Kennedy present. Dallas police arrested Lee Harvey Oswald within hours of the shooting. Oswald, a former U.S. Marine who had defected to the Soviet Union and later returned, was charged with the murder. Two days later, on 24 November 1963, Oswald was shot and killed by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby while in police custody and being transferred between facilities - the killing was broadcast live on national television.

President Johnson established the Warren Commission in November 1963 to investigate the assassination. The commission, chaired by Chief Justice Earl Warren, concluded in its 1964 report that Oswald acted alone in killing Kennedy and that Ruby acted alone in killing Oswald. A later congressional inquiry, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), concluded in 1979 that Kennedy was “probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy,” based in part on acoustic evidence, though it did not identify the conspirators. The acoustic evidence cited by the HSCA has since been disputed by subsequent analyses.

Thousands of government records related to the assassination have been released over the decades under the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, with further declassifications occurring in the 2010s and 2020s. Some documents remain partially or fully withheld on national security grounds as of 2025.

There is no unified scholarly or scientific consensus on whether Oswald acted alone. The forensic consensus among ballistics and pathology experts has generally supported the single-shooter conclusion, including the controversial “single bullet theory” explaining Connally's wounds. Historians and political scientists remain divided on the broader question of conspiracy. See the historical consensus page for a summary of where professional agreement does and does not exist.

Lone gunman - The position of the Warren Commission and a significant portion of academic historians holds that Oswald, acting alone, fired three shots from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. Read more.

Domestic conspiracy - Some researchers and the HSCA's 1979 conclusion suggest that Oswald may have had accomplices or handlers with ties to organized crime, anti-Castro Cuban exile groups, or elements within U.S. government agencies. Read more.

Soviet or Cuban involvement - A distinct line of inquiry points to Oswald's Soviet defection, his contacts with Soviet and Cuban diplomatic personnel in Mexico City weeks before the assassination, and Cold War geopolitical motives as suggesting foreign state involvement. Read more.

Intelligence community involvement - A subset of researchers argue that CIA or other federal intelligence personnel had foreknowledge of or direct involvement in the assassination, citing gaps in surveillance records and alleged suppression of evidence. Read more.

Evidence insufficiency - Some analysts argue that the evidentiary record - including chain-of-custody issues, the destruction of autopsy materials, and Oswald's death before trial - is too compromised to support confident conclusions in any direction. Read more.

• Assassination of John F. Kennedy - History
• Assassination of John F. Kennedy - Debate
• Assassination of John F. Kennedy - Forensic Consensus
• Assassination of John F. Kennedy - Historical Consensus
• John F. Kennedy
• Lee Harvey Oswald
• Warren Commission
• House Select Committee on Assassinations
• Cold War
• United States of America - History

1. Warren Commission. Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964.
2. U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations. Final Report. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1979.
3. Weiss, Mark, and Ernest Aschkenasy. “An Analysis of Recorded Sounds Relating to the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy.” HSCA Appendix to Hearings, vol. 8. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1979.
4. National Research Council, Committee on Ballistic Acoustics. Reexamination of Acoustic Evidence in the Kennedy Assassination. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1982.
5. President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992. Pub. L. 102-526, 106 Stat. 3443 (1992).
6. Manchester, William. The Death of a President. New York: Harper & Row, 1967.
7. Posner, Gerald. Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK. New York: Random House, 1993.
8. Bugliosi, Vincent. Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. New York: W. W. Norton, 2007.