It was 12:30 p.m. sharp when the shots rang out across Dealy Plaza in Dallas. They were quick, salient cracks released in one-second intervals. The weather was unseasonably warm for late November, even by Texas standards. Looking back, though, nobody really cares about the temperature that day.
Friday marks 50 years since the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963. Most people alive in the early '60s can pinpoint their whereabouts when they received word of Kennedy's death. Many reference Walter Cronkite's ominous announcement (below).
And while the medium of delivery has changed over time, from radio to newspapers, TV to the Internet, the memories surrounding such events are carved forever: I was at home eating dinner when I heard the news on the radio; I was getting ready for school while I watched the aftermath; I was at my desk working when I read the tweet.

Video: YouTube, Becky Ellis We asked people how they remember some of the most paralyzing U.S. events of the past 50 years. Specifically, we wanted to know how technology — TV, mobile or web — played a role in their experiences. These are only a handful of stories we've collected, but we'd love to hear yours. Which historical moments stand out most to you? Share your experiences in the comments section. Jeff Bushman, 62, is an insurance agent and radio host in Phoenix, Ariz. He remembers sitting in his seventh grade math class in Los Angeles when he first heard about JFK's assassination in Dallas. "We were going over homework, or listening to our teacher talk; I don't exactly remember. But we were all just sitting there, like every other day, and the door to the classroom just swings open," he says. "This other teacher walks in, very purposefully, and hands our teacher a note. Then she whispers — and we all heard her, everyone was listening in — she just whispers 'Please keep your door shut .' And then leaves." Bushman's teacher held the note wearily in both hands, her arms stretched far in front of her, and mouthed a few silent words to herself. Eventually, she looked up at the class. "The president has been shot," she said lifelessly. A few students gasped; others blankly scribbled on their notebooks. Two minutes later, the school's principal announced over the PA system that Kennedy was confirmed dead. See also: Wristwatch Used to Declare JFK's Time of Death May Sell for $100,000 Bushman remembers the next few days playing out in a hectic daze. It was a "blizzard of people watching TV." It seemed every station reported related news around the clock: the swearing in of then-Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, as well as speculations of shooters. Everyone seemed to be in a universal trance, fixated on their radios and screens . "Especially my father," says Bushman. "He was seldom numbed by the news, but everyone — and I mean everyone — just sat and watched. And waited." At the time, TV had just entered its golden age as the primary news medium. Two days after the assassination, on Nov. 24, Bushman watched live coverage of lead suspect Lee Harvey Oswald being escorted out of the Dallas police headquarters. Jack Ruby, a local night club owner, approached Oswald and shot him in the stomach. "At first, my family and I didn't know what had happened. The cameras were zoomed in on Oswald's face. All you saw was a blur, Ruby, and then heard this noise," he says. "Then Oswald went down."

Video: YouTube, Mr. Kesselring It was the first time Bushman had seen someone get shot. (Oswald died two hours later at the hospital.) The footage played on repeat. Again, Jeff and his family watched in silence. "It was like a bad mobster movie. That whole weekend was a series of events you didn't think actually happened in real life." Despite the fear, Bushman says he took comfort knowing everyone in the country was watching the events unfold together, via television mostly. It was a confusing, mysterious and nerve-wracking period, but the fact that everyone was watching, ingesting the same information at the same time as everyone else, felt humbling. "TV and radio reports created a sense of community. Everyone was experiencing this together. It made the entire thing seem slightly more bearable," he says. "I'll always remember watching Oswald get shot, and the shock and fear all of us felt while we watched it live. But we were watching it together." Danny Groner, a 30-year-old online marketer based in New York, was studying abroad in Israel on Sept. 11, 2001. He had arrived just three weeks earlier. Per his school's request, he'd signed up for text message alerts for Europe and Israel-specific news, as a way to stay in-the-know of events nearby. At the time, bus bombings and shopping mall attacks were common in the area. One of the alert accounts covered emergency international news. "I was napping when my phone buzzed and woke me up," he says. "It was an international news alert that said a plane had flown into a building in New York." Groner wasn't originally from New York City, so the gravity didn't immediately strike him. He drifted back to sleep, but his phone buzzed again a few minutes later: a second plane had struck another building. Image: POOL/AFP/Getty Images "Only when I got a second text message did I fully comprehend what was unfolding overseas," he says. Unfortunately, he didn't have a TV in his dorm room; Internet access was shoddy, too. He tried calling his parents back in Maryland, but the phone lines were jammed, presumably from an outpouring of other exchange students attempting to call home. He made his way to the student center, in the middle of campus, where 50 or so students were huddled around a single TV set. "And we all just started at the screen," he says. "The footage was in Hebrew, but it didn't matter. The images were compelling enough. They spoke for themselves." He finally got in touch with his parents, about 12 hours after the towers fell. They were safe at home, and like Groner, were anxious for more information. "To this day, I don't feel like I fully comprehend what happened," he says. "Not that I feel 'left out,' because that sounds weird. But I was definitely far-removed from the experience most Americans had that day. I can't help but wish I would have been home." Rhae Lynn Barnes, 26, is a teaching and Andrew W. Mellon fellow in history at Harvard University. She was teaching a class on campus in Cambridge, just a few miles from downtown Boston, when she read news on Twitter about a bombing. "I had given a lot of my students permission to either run in or watch the marathon," she says, "so my class was much emptier than normal." During a break, she opened Twitter on her iPhone and saw that her entire feed was filled with tweets about an explosion at the marathon's finish line. Immediately, she thought of her students . Around the same time, a fire had broken out in the John F. Kennedy Presidential library on campus. Several tweets and Facebook posts alleged the fire was related to the bombing downtown. Some even falsely indicated it was an additional bomb that ignited in the building. "There was a lot of miscommunication," Barnes says. "In moments of panic, people jump to conclusions, especially on social media. For a while, we thought the library and other parts of campus had been shut down. We didn't feel like we could leave." See also: How 'The Boston Globe' Covered Its Own City Under Siege Thankfully, she got in touch with her students at the marathon through text messages. She had CNN on TV at this point, but kept her eye on Twitter and Facebook feeds, which erupted with new messages of people's whereabouts and well-being.

Video: YouTube, Global Leaks And then both apps stopped loading — a temporary service jam or slow connection. "So a lot of my students, and others, started using Instagram to post photos of where they were," she says. "They'd write messages in the comments, too. It was really the only way we were getting information from the ground at that point." Despite her feeling of disempowerment, texting and social media were her community connections, occasional misinformation be damned. In the days to come, while the city was put on lockdown, Barnes even taught a class through a Google Hangout. "Technology and social media were really central to my entire experience in the Boston bombing. For better or worse," she says. "I, my students and a lot of other people would have had much different experiences without it." Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments. Image: Library of Congress. Post image: POOL/AFP/Getty Images Topics: history, JFK, JFK50, Tech, U.S., US & World
Video: YouTube, Becky Ellis
We asked people how they remember some of the most paralyzing U.S. events of the past 50 years. Specifically, we wanted to know how technology — TV, mobile or web — played a role in their experiences.
These are only a handful of stories we've collected, but we'd love to hear yours. Which historical moments stand out most to you? Share your experiences in the comments section.
Jeff Bushman, 62, is an insurance agent and radio host in Phoenix, Ariz. He remembers sitting in his seventh grade math class in Los Angeles when he first heard about JFK's assassination in Dallas.
"We were going over homework, or listening to our teacher talk; I don't exactly remember. But we were all just sitting there, like every other day, and the door to the classroom just swings open," he says.
"This other teacher walks in, very purposefully, and hands our teacher a note. Then she whispers — and we all heard her, everyone was listening in — she just whispers 'Please keep your door shut .' And then leaves."
Bushman's teacher held the note wearily in both hands, her arms stretched far in front of her, and mouthed a few silent words to herself. Eventually, she looked up at the class.
"The president has been shot," she said lifelessly.
A few students gasped; others blankly scribbled on their notebooks. Two minutes later, the school's principal announced over the PA system that Kennedy was confirmed dead.
See also: Wristwatch Used to Declare JFK's Time of Death May Sell for $100,000
Bushman remembers the next few days playing out in a hectic daze. It was a "blizzard of people watching TV." It seemed every station reported related news around the clock: the swearing in of then-Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, as well as speculations of shooters.
Everyone seemed to be in a universal trance, fixated on their radios and screens . "Especially my father," says Bushman. "He was seldom numbed by the news, but everyone — and I mean everyone — just sat and watched. And waited."
At the time, TV had just entered its golden age as the primary news medium. Two days after the assassination, on Nov. 24, Bushman watched live coverage of lead suspect Lee Harvey Oswald being escorted out of the Dallas police headquarters. Jack Ruby, a local night club owner, approached Oswald and shot him in the stomach.
"At first, my family and I didn't know what had happened. The cameras were zoomed in on Oswald's face. All you saw was a blur, Ruby, and then heard this noise," he says. "Then Oswald went down."

Video: YouTube, Mr. Kesselring It was the first time Bushman had seen someone get shot. (Oswald died two hours later at the hospital.) The footage played on repeat. Again, Jeff and his family watched in silence. "It was like a bad mobster movie. That whole weekend was a series of events you didn't think actually happened in real life." Despite the fear, Bushman says he took comfort knowing everyone in the country was watching the events unfold together, via television mostly. It was a confusing, mysterious and nerve-wracking period, but the fact that everyone was watching, ingesting the same information at the same time as everyone else, felt humbling. "TV and radio reports created a sense of community. Everyone was experiencing this together. It made the entire thing seem slightly more bearable," he says. "I'll always remember watching Oswald get shot, and the shock and fear all of us felt while we watched it live. But we were watching it together." Danny Groner, a 30-year-old online marketer based in New York, was studying abroad in Israel on Sept. 11, 2001. He had arrived just three weeks earlier. Per his school's request, he'd signed up for text message alerts for Europe and Israel-specific news, as a way to stay in-the-know of events nearby. At the time, bus bombings and shopping mall attacks were common in the area. One of the alert accounts covered emergency international news. "I was napping when my phone buzzed and woke me up," he says. "It was an international news alert that said a plane had flown into a building in New York." Groner wasn't originally from New York City, so the gravity didn't immediately strike him. He drifted back to sleep, but his phone buzzed again a few minutes later: a second plane had struck another building. Image: POOL/AFP/Getty Images "Only when I got a second text message did I fully comprehend what was unfolding overseas," he says. Unfortunately, he didn't have a TV in his dorm room; Internet access was shoddy, too. He tried calling his parents back in Maryland, but the phone lines were jammed, presumably from an outpouring of other exchange students attempting to call home. He made his way to the student center, in the middle of campus, where 50 or so students were huddled around a single TV set. "And we all just started at the screen," he says. "The footage was in Hebrew, but it didn't matter. The images were compelling enough. They spoke for themselves." He finally got in touch with his parents, about 12 hours after the towers fell. They were safe at home, and like Groner, were anxious for more information. "To this day, I don't feel like I fully comprehend what happened," he says. "Not that I feel 'left out,' because that sounds weird. But I was definitely far-removed from the experience most Americans had that day. I can't help but wish I would have been home." Rhae Lynn Barnes, 26, is a teaching and Andrew W. Mellon fellow in history at Harvard University. She was teaching a class on campus in Cambridge, just a few miles from downtown Boston, when she read news on Twitter about a bombing. "I had given a lot of my students permission to either run in or watch the marathon," she says, "so my class was much emptier than normal." During a break, she opened Twitter on her iPhone and saw that her entire feed was filled with tweets about an explosion at the marathon's finish line. Immediately, she thought of her students . Around the same time, a fire had broken out in the John F. Kennedy Presidential library on campus. Several tweets and Facebook posts alleged the fire was related to the bombing downtown. Some even falsely indicated it was an additional bomb that ignited in the building. "There was a lot of miscommunication," Barnes says. "In moments of panic, people jump to conclusions, especially on social media. For a while, we thought the library and other parts of campus had been shut down. We didn't feel like we could leave." See also: How 'The Boston Globe' Covered Its Own City Under Siege Thankfully, she got in touch with her students at the marathon through text messages. She had CNN on TV at this point, but kept her eye on Twitter and Facebook feeds, which erupted with new messages of people's whereabouts and well-being.

Video: YouTube, Global Leaks And then both apps stopped loading — a temporary service jam or slow connection. "So a lot of my students, and others, started using Instagram to post photos of where they were," she says. "They'd write messages in the comments, too. It was really the only way we were getting information from the ground at that point." Despite her feeling of disempowerment, texting and social media were her community connections, occasional misinformation be damned. In the days to come, while the city was put on lockdown, Barnes even taught a class through a Google Hangout. "Technology and social media were really central to my entire experience in the Boston bombing. For better or worse," she says. "I, my students and a lot of other people would have had much different experiences without it." Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments. Image: Library of Congress. Post image: POOL/AFP/Getty Images Topics: history, JFK, JFK50, Tech, U.S., US & World
Video: YouTube, Mr. Kesselring
It was the first time Bushman had seen someone get shot. (Oswald died two hours later at the hospital.) The footage played on repeat. Again, Jeff and his family watched in silence.
"It was like a bad mobster movie. That whole weekend was a series of events you didn't think actually happened in real life."
Despite the fear, Bushman says he took comfort knowing everyone in the country was watching the events unfold together, via television mostly. It was a confusing, mysterious and nerve-wracking period, but the fact that everyone was watching, ingesting the same information at the same time as everyone else, felt humbling.
"TV and radio reports created a sense of community. Everyone was experiencing this together. It made the entire thing seem slightly more bearable," he says.
"I'll always remember watching Oswald get shot, and the shock and fear all of us felt while we watched it live. But we were watching it together."
Danny Groner, a 30-year-old online marketer based in New York, was studying abroad in Israel on Sept. 11, 2001.
He had arrived just three weeks earlier. Per his school's request, he'd signed up for text message alerts for Europe and Israel-specific news, as a way to stay in-the-know of events nearby. At the time, bus bombings and shopping mall attacks were common in the area. One of the alert accounts covered emergency international news.
"I was napping when my phone buzzed and woke me up," he says. "It was an international news alert that said a plane had flown into a building in New York."
Groner wasn't originally from New York City, so the gravity didn't immediately strike him. He drifted back to sleep, but his phone buzzed again a few minutes later: a second plane had struck another building.

Image: POOL/AFP/Getty Images
"Only when I got a second text message did I fully comprehend what was unfolding overseas," he says.
Unfortunately, he didn't have a TV in his dorm room; Internet access was shoddy, too. He tried calling his parents back in Maryland, but the phone lines were jammed, presumably from an outpouring of other exchange students attempting to call home. He made his way to the student center, in the middle of campus, where 50 or so students were huddled around a single TV set.
"And we all just started at the screen," he says. "The footage was in Hebrew, but it didn't matter. The images were compelling enough. They spoke for themselves."
He finally got in touch with his parents, about 12 hours after the towers fell. They were safe at home, and like Groner, were anxious for more information.
"To this day, I don't feel like I fully comprehend what happened," he says. "Not that I feel 'left out,' because that sounds weird. But I was definitely far-removed from the experience most Americans had that day. I can't help but wish I would have been home."
Rhae Lynn Barnes, 26, is a teaching and Andrew W. Mellon fellow in history at Harvard University. She was teaching a class on campus in Cambridge, just a few miles from downtown Boston, when she read news on Twitter about a bombing.
"I had given a lot of my students permission to either run in or watch the marathon," she says, "so my class was much emptier than normal."
During a break, she opened Twitter on her iPhone and saw that her entire feed was filled with tweets about an explosion at the marathon's finish line. Immediately, she thought of her students .
Around the same time, a fire had broken out in the John F. Kennedy Presidential library on campus. Several tweets and Facebook posts alleged the fire was related to the bombing downtown. Some even falsely indicated it was an additional bomb that ignited in the building.
"There was a lot of miscommunication," Barnes says. "In moments of panic, people jump to conclusions, especially on social media. For a while, we thought the library and other parts of campus had been shut down. We didn't feel like we could leave."
See also: How 'The Boston Globe' Covered Its Own City Under Siege
Thankfully, she got in touch with her students at the marathon through text messages. She had CNN on TV at this point, but kept her eye on Twitter and Facebook feeds, which erupted with new messages of people's whereabouts and well-being.

Video: YouTube, Global Leaks And then both apps stopped loading — a temporary service jam or slow connection. "So a lot of my students, and others, started using Instagram to post photos of where they were," she says. "They'd write messages in the comments, too. It was really the only way we were getting information from the ground at that point." Despite her feeling of disempowerment, texting and social media were her community connections, occasional misinformation be damned. In the days to come, while the city was put on lockdown, Barnes even taught a class through a Google Hangout. "Technology and social media were really central to my entire experience in the Boston bombing. For better or worse," she says. "I, my students and a lot of other people would have had much different experiences without it." Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments. Image: Library of Congress. Post image: POOL/AFP/Getty Images Topics: history, JFK, JFK50, Tech, U.S., US & World
Video: YouTube, Global Leaks
And then both apps stopped loading — a temporary service jam or slow connection.
"So a lot of my students, and others, started using Instagram to post photos of where they were," she says. "They'd write messages in the comments, too. It was really the only way we were getting information from the ground at that point."
Despite her feeling of disempowerment, texting and social media were her community connections, occasional misinformation be damned. In the days to come, while the city was put on lockdown, Barnes even taught a class through a Google Hangout.
"Technology and social media were really central to my entire experience in the Boston bombing. For better or worse," she says. "I, my students and a lot of other people would have had much different experiences without it."
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.
Image: Library of Congress. Post image: POOL/AFP/Getty Images