President Kennedy was a transformational leader, and it’s hard to imagine what it felt like to hear of his assassination 50 years ago today. Kennedy was shot as the Boston Symphony Orchestra was about to begin its regular Friday afternoon concert. When word of his death reached the hall a few minutes later, the audience was already seated, oblivious to the world-changing events happening in Dallas.
In a powerful — and stunningly level-headed — decision, the orchestra’s music director, Erich Leinsdorf, sent librarian William Shisler to get the music for the funeral march from Beethoven’s “Eroica” symphony. Shisler quickly distributed the music onstage, letting the musicians know what had happened.
This recording, from WGBH in Boston, begins when Leinsdorf takes the stage to announce the terrible news to the audience and captures the BSO’s heart-rending performance of the Beethoven symphony — a work they found out they were playing only minutes before.
It is quite hard to believe that one of the worst tragedies in the United States of America happened 50 years ago today — The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Much ink will be spilled this day; and I must say, much of it is well done.
However, as a history buff, I believe the best way to remember, is to go back and watch the event, as it happened.
The first breaking report by Walter Cronkite:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K8Q3cqGs7I
The news as it broke on ABC Radio:
Coverage from all the major networks:
ABC TV’s two hour coverage of it:
A stunned New York reacts:
Reactions from many major states:
Martin Luther King Jr’s reaction, who would join him in death in 1968:
There will be a lot of retrospective stuff published today, and I suspect that much of it will either omit or distort one key fact—Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who killed President Kennedy, was a leftwing nut job; he was a communist.
It does amaze me how conservatives on the right do want to claim Kennedy as their own. It is true that Kennedy was part of the old left. But, the old left is miles away from what is conservatism today.
This posting is dedicated to the the 29 men who lost their lives on the Edmund Fitzgerald lake freighter 38 years ago. May they rest in peace.
As the winds of November whipped through a park beside the Detroit River, 29 lanterns flickered at the water’s edge and bagpipes wailed as about 60 people gathered Sunday evening to remember the 29 men who lost their lives on the Edmund Fitzgerald lake freighter 38 years ago.
“It’s appropriate to have this here because the ship was built 1,000 yards south, and it unloaded all the time 1,000 yards north,” said Tom Abair, 62, codirector of the River Rouge Historical Museum.
In a heated tent set up beside the park’s lighthouse, Abair and other museum volunteers displayed mural-size photos and a model of the famed ore carrier that sank in Lake Superior on Nov. 10, 1975, in a gale. Source: The Detroit Free Press
Lyrics:
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down of the big lake they called “Gitche Gumee” The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead when the skies of November turn gloomy With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty, that big ship and true was a bone to be chewed when the Gales of November came early
The ship was the pride of the American side coming back from some mill in Wisconsin As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most with a crew and good captain well seasoned, concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms when they left fully loaded for Cleveland And later that night when the ship’s bell rang, could it be the north wind they’d been feelin’?
The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound and a wave broke over the railing And ev’ry man knew, as the captain did too ’twas the witch of November come stealin’ The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait when the Gales of November came slashin’ When afternoon came it was freezin’ rain in the face of a hurricane west wind
When suppertime came the old cook came on deck sayin’ “Fellas, it’s too rough t’feed ya” At seven P.M. a main hatchway caved in; he said, “Fellas, it’s bin good t’know ya!” The captain wired in he had water comin’ in and the good ship and crew was in peril And later that night when ‘is lights went outta sight came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
Does any one know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours? The searchers all say they’d have made Whitefish Bay if they’d put fifteen more miles behind ‘er They might have split up or they might have capsized; they may have broke deep and took water And all that remains is the faces and the names of the wives and the sons and the daughters
Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings in the rooms of her ice-water mansion Old Michigan steams like a young man’s dreams; the islands and bays are for sportsmen And farther below Lake Ontario takes in what Lake Erie can send her, And the iron boats go as the mariners all know with the Gales of November remembered
In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed, in the Maritime Sailors’ Cathedral The church bell chimed ’til it rang twenty-nine times for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down of the big lake they call “Gitche Gumee” “Superior,” they said, “never gives up her dead when the gales of November come early”
December 1942. “Mary Miller, operator of a router at the Boeing plant in Seattle, drills holes in a part for a new B-17F (Flying Fortress) bomber. The Flying Fortress, a four-engine heavy bomber capable of flying at high altitudes, has performed with great credit in the South Pacific, over Germany and elsewhere.” Photo by Andreas Feininger for the Office of War Information
Detroit circa 1917. “Ice fountain, Washington Boulevard.” The big icicle with a small request, discreetly stated on that unobtrusive little sign near the man: PLEASE. The rest of the message is up to your imagination.
Back when America was actually worth a darn. Unlike now.
Circa 1903. “Flatiron Building, New York.” Looking south down Broadway at this seminal skyscraper, with Fifth Avenue to the right. Also a nice view of the Albemarle Hotel and, at bottom, the obelisk of the Worth Memorial, resting place of Mexican-American War hero Major General William Jenkins Worth (and, incidentally, one of only two monuments serving as mausoleums in Manhattan). 8×10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company
This is stunning. Also too, consider this an exception to the new rule.
What I know him for…:
Lou Reed, a massively influential songwriter and guitarist who helped shape nearly fifty years of rock music, died today. The cause of his death has not yet been released, but Reed underwent a liver transplant in May.
