Lee Harvey Oswald
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| “ | Revolutions require work, revolutions require sacrifice, revolutions, and our own included, require a certain amount of rationing, a certain amount of calluses, a certain amount of sacrifice. | „ |
| ~ Lee Harvey Oswald |
Lee Harvey Oswald (October 18th, 1939 - November 24th, 1963) was a former U.S. Marine (from October 1959 - June 1962) who assassinated John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963.
Biography edit
Oswald was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on October 18, 1939, to Robert Edward Lee Oswald, Sr. (1896–1939) and Marguerite Frances Claverie (1907–1981). Robert Oswald was a distant cousin of Confederate general Robert E. Lee and served in the Marines during World War I. Robert died of a heart attack two months before Lee was born. Lee's elder brother Robert, Jr. (1934–2017) was also a former Marine. Through Marguerite's first marriage to Edward John Pic, Jr., Lee and Robert Jr. were the half-brothers of Air Force veteran John Edward Pic (1932–2000).
In 1944, Marguerite moved the family from New Orleans to Dallas, Texas. Oswald entered the first grade in 1945 and over the next half-dozen years attended several different schools in the Dallas and Fort Worth areas through the sixth grade.
Oswald enlisted in the United States Marine Corps on October 24, 1956, just after his seventeenth birthday. Oswald traveled to the Soviet Union just before he turned 20 in October 1959. According to Oswald, he met with four more Soviet officials that same day, who asked if he wanted to return to the United States. Oswald replied by insisting that he wanted to live in the Soviet Union as a Soviet national. When pressed for identification papers, he provided his Marine Corps discharge papers. There, he studied communism and socialism and married a Russian woman. He also planned an unsuccessful assassination attempt on General Edwin Walker on April 10, 1963, just eight months before Oswald killed President John F. Kennedy.
Kennedy Assassination and Arrest edit
At about 12:30 P.M., he fired three shots; the first shot misfired, but the second hit Kennedy in the throat and injured Governor John Connolly. His third shot severely wounded Kennedy in the back of the head, which led to his death at Parkland Hospital, just 30 minutes later.
About 40 minutes later, he killed Officer J.D. Tippit in an Oak Cliff section before finally being captured by the police in a Dallas movie theater.
Oswald was the one charged for the Assassination of John F. Kennedy, reportedly and supposedly shooting the 35th U.S. President and for killing Officer Tippit. However, he denied involvement in both killings and was interrogated for two days.
Death and Aftermath edit
Unfortunately, Lee Harvey Oswald would never live to be put on trial for both murders. At 11:21 A.M. on Sunday November 24, 1963, just two days after he committed both murders, Jewish gangster-wannabe Jack Ruby shot Oswald in the abdoman, while being transfered to the county jail. While Ruby was arrested by the police, the dying Oswald was immediately transferred to Parkland Memorial Hospital, the same hospital where JFK was pronounced dead 2 days ago. Inside Trauma Room 2, the same doctors who tried to save Kennedy's life were now trying to do the same for his assassin. But once again, their efforts were very unsuccessful. So less than two hours later, at 1:07 P.M., 24-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald is pronounced dead. The next day, on the same day of the funerals for President Kennedy and Officer Tippet, Oswald is buried in Fort Worth.
In September 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald acted alone when he assassinated Kennedy by firing three shots from the Texas School Book Depository. This conclusion was supported by previous investigations from the FBI, the Secret Service, and the Dallas Police Department.
Trivia edit
- Oswald killed JFK on the same day Robert Stroud died.
- After his death, someone broke into his grave and replaced his body with one that's teeth were drilled to maych his own. What happened to his body afterwards is unknown.
- He was portrayed by Gary Oldman in the Oliver Stone film, JFK.
- There are some theories that Oswald might be innocent, meaning that some people claimed that he might have not killed JFK, and the Secret Service, the Mafia, or the Grassy Knoll shooter might have killed JFK.
- Both he and Sirhan B. Sirhan killed politicals where their family is Kennedy family. But similar than him, Sirhan B. Sirhan killed Robert F. Kennedy in 1968.
- Both he and John Wilkes Booth share some similarities.
- Both men were born in the late 30’s (Oswald was born in 1939 and Booth was born in 1838).
- Both committed their crimes in the same building they were employed by assassinating a president on a Friday (Oswald (supposedly) shot John F Kennedy from a Texas Book Depository on November 22, 1963 whereas Booth shot Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theater on April 14, 1865).
- Both men have fifteen letters.
- Both men suffered injuries while trying to escape (Oswald got punched in the face by officers whereas Booth allegedly fractured his left leg after either jumping down from the box to the stage at Ford's Theater or a result of him falling off of his horse in the Maryland countryside).
- After killing Kennedy, Oswald fled from a warehouse and was caught in a theater. After killing Lincoln, Booth ran from a theater and was caught in a tobacco barn.
- Both assassins were themselves assassinated by religious fanatics and neither of them would live to stand trial (Oswald was assassinated by Jack Ruby during a jail transfer, whereas Booth was assassinated by Boston Corbett during an apparent gunfight with Union troops while David Herold surrendered.)