So where were you when you heard?

Heard that JFK had been assassinated, of course - one of those events for which they say that everyone who was around then can still remember what they were doing when they heard about it. The fortieth anniversary is tomorrow, and the NY Times has an online section devoted to the anniversary. PDF files reproducing the front section of the paper on the day after, and other historical articles, such as the report on Kennedy's trip to Texas from the paper published on the morning of the day he was shot, and on the funeral. A couple of columns since then - from the 25th and 30th anniversaries of the shooting, and a recent column on Nellie Connally, the last surviving non-Secret-Service occupant of the car carrying the President.

To me, the most interesting columns in the section are the ones from today: Tom Wicker's long column on how little the assassination seems to have affected later events, and Hamilton's and Mallon's columns suggesting that the assassination of the President had a large impact on later events. (Hamilton's is interesting: He posits a Reagan-Bush two-term presidency starting in 1972, no return of Nixon, an RFK-Cuomo ticket winning in 1980, and Colin Powell becoming president in 1992 and Clinton in 2000. Yes, plenty of places where you can suggest that wouldn't happen, such as the invocation of the 25th Amendment between 1969 and 1973 - but the impetus behind the 25th Amendment was JFK's assassination and the office of the Vice President being vacant from November 1963 through January 1965, and without the assassination, the Amendment wouldn't have been adopted. But that's the fun of alternate histories.)

And me? I was in fifth grade, and the class had just come in from Phys Ed. We'd heard some school-wide announcement while we were outside, but it sounded like adults on Peanuts TV specials. When we came in, our teacher - Mrs. Murphy, as I recall - who had clearly been crying, told us what happened, and we watched the TV coverage for the rest of the day.