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\nOn Friday, November 22, 1963, the news of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination spread around the globe. The event occurred in Dallas, Texas, and the news reached England via ticker-tape at 6:42 pm, just 11 minutes after the shots were fired.<\/p>\n
As the BBC’s Monitoring Service scanned the airwaves for any updates, a bulletin emerged from the Voice of America at 7:40 pm, confirming that President Kennedy was dead.<\/p>\n
The assassination of President Kennedy is one of those moments when many people can recall what they were doing. <\/p>\n
The audience at the Regal cinema in Abingdon were watching The Longest Day<\/em>, the American film drama about the D-Day landings. <\/p>\n The reel paused, the lights flickered on, and after a hubbub, a hush fell, as a man appeared on stage.<\/p>\n He said: “I am afraid to inform you ladies and gentlemen that the President of the United States has been assassinated. We have no further information at this time.”<\/p>\n Elizabeth, who was there, remembered the two minute silence that followed the announcement. Mike, was a member of the Royal Air Force, and for him the news carried another significance. He thought that the potential for conflict with the USSR, a threat that had been growing, now seemed an imminent reality.<\/p>\n