60 years on, JFK’s assassination remains a mystery

When John F Kennedy became the fourth sitting US president to be assassinated, at the hands of a gunman, in Texas 60 years ago, the country was left stunned and heartbroken.

The handsome and charismatic New Englander was shot dead in Dallas, Texas, on 22 November 1963, joining an infamous list that includes Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield and William McKinley.

Lincoln was shot in April 1865 by actor John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theater in Washington DC, five days after the surrender of Confederate General Robert E Lee, in an attempt to disrupt the Union and save the Confederacy. Garfield was shot in July 1881 by Charles Guiteau at a Washington DC train station, after the president refused to appoint him to a diplomatic post. Garfield died from his injuries several months later in September 1881.

McKinley was shot twice in the chest by anarchist Leon Czolgosz in Buffalo in 1901 with his attacker claiming the president was the head of a corrupt government. He died of a gangrene infection weeks later.

But the motivation for the killing of, has always remained unclear sparking a debate that has raged for decades.