Hundreds of Australians wrote to Jackie Kennedy after her husband was killed. The letters paint a revealing portrait of who we were and who we wanted to be.
John F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy in the limousine in Dallas minutes before the assassination.
Walt Cisco/Dallas Morning News
JFK’s leadership style has been hugely influential, acting as a model emulated by subsequent presidents including Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama.
President John F. Kennedy is seen shortly before his assassination on Nov. 22, 1963.
Associated Press
Gothic storytelling, with its sinister atmosphere of conspiracy and other hallmarks, offers a way to reframe the Kennedy family lore.
This man visited the Soviet embassy in Mexico City while Lee Harvey Oswald was in Mexico in 1963. Officials thought it might be Oswald.
Corbis via Getty Images
Gonzalo Soltero, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)
In 1967 a Mexican reporter told the CIA he had met Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico City just before the JFK assassination. New research and recently declassified intelligence pokes a hole in his story.
Wendy Melillo, American University School of Communication
The agency’s earliest ad campaigns emphasized youthful idealism, patriotism and travel opportunities. That was an easier sell than urging Americans to enlist in an anti-communist operation.
Jackie Kennedy leaving the US Capitol after viewing John F. Kennedy lying in state.
Wikimedia
JFK pushed consumer rights to the top of the national agenda in 1962, leading to a raft of new laws offering new protections. But without enforcement, such rights are meaningless.
Women earn less than men in most occupations, including soccer.
AP Photo/Jessica Hill
A decade ago, President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the latest legislative effort to close the persistent gap between how much women and men earn. Here’s why it hasn’t made much of a difference.
Coal miner photographed on the job near Richlands, Virginia, in 1974.
Jack Corn/Environmental Protection Agency
In the minds of many, the assassination remains a tragedy cloaked in mystery. How does this lack of closure – and the general distrust it fomented – resonate in American culture and politics today?
Will the files show who was really behind the assassination of John F. Kennedy?
Walt Rostow argued communism was incompatible with economic development and was influential in persuading Presidents Kennedy and Johnson to get more involved in Vietnam.
Secretary of State Dean Rusk, President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.
Yoichi Robert Okamoto/Wikipedia
Was Vietnam ‘a quagmire’ or a ‘stalemate machine’? Understanding this 50-year-old debate can shed light on why the US is currently locked into a ‘forever war.’
Former FBI Director James Comey testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington.
AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
Professor in U.S. Politics and U.S. Foreign Relations at the United States Studies Centre and in the Discipline of Government and International Relations, University of Sydney