Today in History - November 22 | Australians blissfully unaware of world's most famous assassination
November 22
When news about the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, sped across the world, most Australians were asleep blissfully unaware of the seismic events thousands of kilometres away in Dallas.
Kennedy was riding through Dallas, Texas, with his wife Jacqueline Kennedy and state Governor John Connally on November 22, 1963, when gunman Lee Harvey Oswald opened fire on the motorcade, fatally wounding the beloved US president, known as JFK.
Oswald fled the scene and shot a Dallas police officer before being arrested.
Due to the time difference, news of Kennedy's murder only started trickling through to Australia at about 4.30am the following day, a Saturday.
Newspapers, radio stations and the country's fledgling TV industry scrambled to bring news of Kennedy's murder to the Australian public.
Some of the coverage centred on Oswald's links to Soviet Union and support for communist-ruled Cuba, with speculation he was part of a wider conspiracy.
By the end of the weekend, Australians, like the rest of the world, expected a respite from the dramatic, history-making events of the past 48 hours.
But the Kennedy assassination took another bloody turn when Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby shot dead Oswald in the city's police headquarters live on television, with the news reaching Australia at on the Monday.
The Warren Commission, set up to investigate the JFK assassination, concluded Oswald was the sole person responsible. But decades on, conspiracy theories abound over who was really behind the world's most famous murder.
The first Olympic Games held in Australia began in Melbourne on November 22, 1956.
The opening ceremony was staged in the Melbourne Cricket Ground, with 103,000 spectators packing the stadium to welcome the athletes.
The Games lasted 15 days and it was the first time they were staged outside Europe or North America.
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