These rarely-seen pictures of President John F. Kennedy's assassination, autopsy, and funeral reveal the full story of the shooting in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963 that shook America to its core.
Wikimedia CommonsPresident John F. Kennedy rides through Dallas just minutes before his assassination on November 22, 1963.
Images of John F. Kennedy’s assassination hold a permanent place in the American consciousness. Jackie Kennedy’s pink dress. The doomed convertible. The jubilant crowds. It was the moment, in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963, when American history changed forever.
That day of the Kennedy assassination started out full of promise. Kennedy, with his eye on reelection, was all smiles. Even the morning rain had cleared. That allowed the president, his wife, the governor of Texas, and his wife, to take the plastic bubble top off their car.
They drove together through downtown Dallas, beaming and waving at the crowd. But as the car crossed Dealey Plaza, shots suddenly rang out.
Time seemed to stop. The president slumped forward, and the nation would never be the same. From that fateful moment to the autopsy and funeral that followed, see some of the most powerful JFK assassination pictures below, then go deeper inside the story of that tragic day.
Texas Governor John Connally and his wife (front) sit with President and Mrs. Kennedy in their limousine just minutes before the assassination took place.Victor Hugo King/Library of Congress
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Secret Service agent Clint Hill jumps aboard the presidential limousine to act as a protective shield for President Kennedy and the first lady moments after the shots were fired.Justin Newman/Associated Press/Wikimedia Commons
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Fearing that they were in the line of fire, onlookers Bill and Gayle Newman lie on the grass, sheltering their children, mere seconds after the president was shot.Frank Cancellare/Wikimedia Commons
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Onlookers Bill and Jean Newman and their children fall on the grass north of Elm Street seconds after the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.Wikimedia Commons
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A woman reacts to the news of the president's death on the streets of New York.Stan Wayman/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
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President Kennedy and the first lady arrive at the Love Field airport in Dallas early on the morning of the assassination.Cecil W. Stoughton/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
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Texas Governor John Connally and his wife sit with President and Mrs. Kennedy in their limousine not long before the assassination took place.National Archives and Records Administration
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John F. Kennedy Jr. (who turned three on this day) salutes as the casket of his father as it's carried out of St. Matthew's Cathedral in Washington, D.C. while Jacqueline Kennedy and Robert Kennedy stand behind the boy. November 25.Bettmann/Contributor/Getty Images
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The shirt worn by President Kennedy at the time of his assassination.Bettmann/Contributor/Getty Images
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President Kennedy slumps over just after being shot.ullstein bild via Getty Images
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New York newspapers report the president's death.Bettmann/Contributor/Getty Images
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The president's limousine travels down Elm Street immediately after the first shot was fired. Kennedy, largely obscured by the car's rearview mirror, can be seen with his fist clenched in front of his throat while agents standing on the car behind the limousine look back toward the Texas School Book Depository, the entrance of which is visible just behind the tree.James William "Ike" Altgens/Associated Press/Wikimedia
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Just after the assassination, a crowd gathers outside of a radio shop in New York's Greenwich Village in order to hear the latest news from Dallas.Orlando Fernandez/New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection/Library of Congress
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The "magic bullet." This was the bullet that was found on the stretcher that had carried Governor Connally at Parkland Memorial Hospital. According to proponents of the single-bullet theory, this one bullet caused seven different wounds in both Governor Connally and President Kennedy while following a trajectory that opponents of the theory believe to be impossible.National Archives and Records Administration
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Sunlight streams through the columns of the The Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol and onto the coffin of the late President Kennedy, lying in state before funeral services. November 24.Bettmann/Contributor/Getty Images
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The view from the sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository, from which Lee Harvey Oswald is thought to have shot President Kennedy, as seen approximately one hour after the assassination.Hulton Archive/Getty Images
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Crowds of people wait for news outside Parkland Memorial Hospital, where President Kennedy had been taken following his assassination.Art Rickerby/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Policemen on motorcycles speed by while civilians lie on the grass and photographers capture the scene within seconds of the president being shot.New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection/Library of Congress
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Alleged shooter Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who killed JFK according to official records, poses for his mugshot following the assassination.Dallas Police Department/Wikimedia Commons
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Mugshot of Lee Harvey Oswald soon after being taken into custody.Wikimedia Commons
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Jack Ruby moves into position immediately before fatally shooting alleged President Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald on live television as police transport him through the basement of Dallas Police headquarters on the way to Dallas County Jail.Ira Jefferson "Jack" Beers Jr./The Dallas Morning News/Wikimedia Commons
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Jack Ruby shoots Lee Harvey Oswald.Wikimedia Commons
Secret Service agents and assorted staff carry the president's casket up the stairs into Air Force One at Love Field Airport.Cecil W. Stoughton/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
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Mrs. Kennedy leans over the dying president as a Secret Service agent climbs onto the back of the car just after the shooting.ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images
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First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and her children, Caroline Kennedy and John F. Kennedy, Jr., exit the U.S. Capitol Building where the late President Kennedy lies in state. Walking behind: Patricia Kennedy Lawford (right) and her husband Peter Lawford (left), along with Robert F. Kennedy (center).Abbie Rowe/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
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The sniper's perch on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building from which Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly shot President Kennedy, as seen within a few hours of the assassination.Bettmann/Contributor/Getty Images
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The hearse carrying the body of the president leaves Parkland Memorial Hospital as a crowd of people look on.Art Rickerby/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Just a few blocks from the assassination site, the Marsalis Street Bus 1213 travels down Elm Street with Lee Harvey Oswald aboard, on his way home just minutes after the shooting.Stuart L. Reed/Wikimedia Commons
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The president slumps over approximately one-sixth of a second after the fatal shot was fired.Mary Ann Moorman/Wikimedia Commons
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A mortally wounded Lee Harvey Oswald lies on a stretcher on its way toward an ambulance just after he was shot in the basement of Dallas Police headquarters by Jack Ruby.Three Lions/Getty Images
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President Lyndon B. Johnson places a wreath before the flag-draped casket of President Kennedy during funeral services in the Capitol rotunda in Washington, D.C.National Archives and Records Administration
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Police officers gather around the Presidential limousine in front of an entrance to Parkland Hospital in Dallas, Texas, following the arrival of President John F. Kennedy.Wikimedia Commons
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The emergency room at Parkland Memorial Hospital where President Kennedy was taken after the shooting.Donald Uhrbrock/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
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A Dallas policeman holds up the rifle that Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly used to kill President Kennedy.Bettmann/Contributor/Getty Images
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Dallas Police escort Jack Ruby to jail soon after questioning him in the shooting of alleged President Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald at Dallas Police headquarters earlier that day.Bettmann/Contributor/Getty Images
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An autopsy photograph of the president's body taken at Maryland's Bethesda Naval Hospital.Apic/Getty Images
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An unidentified doctor at Parkland Memorial Hospital speaks at a press conference following the assassination of President Kennedy.Art Rickerby/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
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A few hours after the assassination, Jacqueline Kennedy and Robert Kennedy get into the Navy ambulance carrying the body of President Kennedy at Andrews Air Force Base, just outside Washington, D.C. From here, the body of President Kennedy was taken to Bethesda Naval Hospital for an immediate autopsy.AFP/Getty Images
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Lyndon B. Johnson takes the oath of office aboard Air Force One just two hours after the assassination while Jackie Kennedy (right), still in her blood-soaked clothes, looks on.Wikimedia Commons
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A mortally wounded Lee Harvey Oswald lies on a stretcher just after being shot by Jack Ruby inside Dallas Police headquarters.Shel Hershorn/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images
Guards stand in the hallway of Maryland's Bethesda Naval Hospital, where President Kennedy's body was prepared for burial.Robert Phillips/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images
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President Kennedy and the first lady arrive at the Love Field airport in Dallas early on the morning of the assassination.Cecil W. Stoughton/National Archives and Records Administration
The Story Behind John F. Kennedy's Assassination, Autopsy, And Funeral
Photos of John F. Kennedy's assassination seem to slow down time. They separate out each moment and allow them all to linger in the mind. But in reality, the assassination itself unfolded in a matter of mere seconds.
On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy's open-top limousine turned onto Dealey Plaza around 12:30 p.m. As it passed beneath the Texas School Book Depository, two shots hit the president.
The president was then raced to Parkland Memorial Hospital — but doctors were unable to save his life. From there, images of John F. Kennedy's assassination take on a new kind of haunting character.
Once John F. Kennedy's body was taken to Love Field and placed on Air Force One, his vice president Lyndon B. Johnson took the oath of office. In one of the most indelible JFK assassination photos, Jackie Kennedy stands frozen at Johnson's side while he was sworn in. She had refused to leave Dallas without JFK's body.
Meanwhile, the news had spread across the country. Americans gathered around radios and TV sets. They sobbed on the streets and stared at newspaper headlines. But the saga was far from over.
Public DomainA photo taken by Mary Ann Moorman one-sixth of a second after John F. Kennedy was fatally shot.
In the days that followed, JFK's body was carefully examined by doctors — and JFK autopsy photos capture this horrific moment in time.
The official John F. Kennedy autopsy showed that the president had been shot twice, once in the head and once in the back. In these photos, JFK's body is just a mere shell of the young, charismatic president that had captivated the nation.
Following JFK's autopsy, the president was finally laid to rest. On the day of his funeral, John F. Kennedy's body was moved from the White House to the Capitol.
Poignantly, his young son John saluted his father's casket as it passed.
Why Photos Of The Kennedy Assassination Remain So Powerful To This Day
In the immediate aftermath of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, countless writers spilled untold amounts of ink in an effort to grapple with a tragedy that had rattled the United States of America to its core.
Many of these writers delivered sweeping statements on the historic weight of this catastrophe or relayed the thoughts and words of the insiders sitting in America's highest corridors of power.
Wikimedia CommonsPresident Kennedy's limousine rides down Elm Street, mere moments before his assassination.
And yet, of everything written in the aftermath of the assassination of JFK, the piece that remains the most well-remembered today is the one that set its sights seemingly much lower — but, in truth, much higher.
Rather than wax tragic about the state of the nation or interview those closest to the president, legendary New York journalist Jimmy Breslin instead spoke with Clifton Pollard, the man tasked with digging Kennedy's grave, and delivered an affecting account of a lowly laborer who'd suddenly found himself in the middle of a historic moment.
In focusing on such an ostensibly unremarkable corner of such an immense episode in American history, Breslin both found an unexpected angle that no other writer was taking and provided the average reader with an emotional entry point into an event that was simply too upsetting to confront head on.
So memorable and moving was Breslin's approach that not only does his piece live on more than a half-century later, but it's also inspired what's since been called "the gravedigger school of news writing."
Wikimedia CommonsPresident John F. Kennedy in the Oval Office in July 1963, four months before his assassination.
Proponents of this approach are always on the lookout for their "gravedigger," the unassuming corner of a story that proves all the more weighty because of just how peripheral it may seem at first.
And as for the Kennedy assassination itself, Breslin certainly didn't find that episode's only "gravedigger." On the contrary, the assassination — from the hours before the shooting to the arrest and murder of the suspect to the president's funeral — is filled with little moments, people, places, and things that illustrate the event's gravitas in ways that a straightforward document of the actual shooting itself (such as, say, the Zapruder film) just can't.
The seldom-seen Kennedy assassination photos above — including tragic scenes of JFK's body, JFK's autopsy, and more — are certainly proof of that.
After seeing these photos of the JFK assassination, funeral, and autopsy, learn a little about what's inside the secret Kennedy assassination files released by the U.S. government. Then, have a look at some of the most incredible John F. Kennedy photos ever taken.
Based in Brooklyn, New York, John Kuroski is the editorial director of All That's Interesting. He graduated from New York University with a degree in history, earning a place in the Phi Alpha Theta honor society for history students. An editor at All That's Interesting since 2015, his areas of expertise include modern American history and the ancient Near East. In an editing career spanning 17 years, he previously served as managing editor of Elmore Magazine in New York City for seven years.
A senior staff writer for All That's Interesting since 2021 and co-host of the History Uncovered Podcast, Kaleena Fraga graduated with a dual degree in American History and French Language and Literature from Oberlin College. She previously ran the presidential history blog History First, and has had work published in The Washington Post, Gastro Obscura, and elsewhere. She has published more than 1,200 pieces on topics including history and archaeology. She is based in Brooklyn, New York.
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Kuroski, John. "Haunting Photos Of The Kennedy Assassination And Autopsy That Capture The Full Scope Of The Tragedy." AllThatsInteresting.com, July 20, 2025, https://allthatsinteresting.com/kennedy-assassination-photos. Accessed July 30, 2025.
