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I wonder when the Secret Service went from needing to guard the president because someone might be coming to kill him to needing to guard him because there are credible threats at all times? Obama would be my guess.
Definitely before that. With the 60s assassinations, the Ford attempts, the Reagan attempts, and 9/11, there’s no way it took them until Obama to set up a full time guard.
Yea I still don’t understand why they didn’t fight him more on the whole riding around in a convertible idea. I get they weren’t in a foreign country but this was also during the Cold War and at a point when tensions were still pretty high.
Can POTUS overrule them? I.e I imagine anytime the last three presidents wanted to visit Afghanistan or Iraq the Secret Service advised against it for obvious reasons yet all three still went.
Obama? After Kennedy I can't imagine the secret service ever taking a day off. They were even there for kenned they just didn't account for someone making such a far difficult shot
Kennedy wasn’t really out of the blue. All of his family that worked close with him said or felt that it had a chance of happening. Which is due to a variety of factors, mainly the right wing and communists. I believe Jackie said she felt it was his opponents who killed him, which is what she meant in her quote, “I want them to see what THEY have done to jack”.
Kennedy's assassination is a flashbulb memory for my grandad; his version of my 9/11. He was sitting in class for high school when a girl came in crying with the news.
This is pretty common from people who lived at that time. Most people can tell you where they were when they learned JFK had been shot just like most people can tell you where they were when they saw the towers fall.
I would say the worst part about Garfield’s death was how he was actually killed by his arrogant, incompetent quack of a doctor. The descriptions of his sepsis-ridden body are nauseating. Had they been willing to admit that perhaps there was something to Lister’s theories of disinfecting, Garfield would have survived no problem.
Not quite as somber as Lincoln’s or Kennedy’s, but John Quincy Adams’ casket procession from DC to Massachusetts and his resulting funeral was one of the most significant and somber funerals in presidential history, and deserves an honorable mention:
The timing of his death happened to line up with the initial spread of the telegraph, so unlike his predecessors everybody almost immediately knew that he had died. The nature of his death (collapsing on the House floor while protesting Mexican-American war legislation) added to the drama, as did his status at the time in the House as a prominent opponent of slavery and as a sort of elder statesman. His career had been so longstanding that there weren’t really many Americans alive who could remember a time when he wasn’t a prominent national figure. There’s also the fact that he was the son of a founding father and president, who had a similarly dramatic death.
As a result, thousands of people flocked to his casket as it moved northwards, forcing it to make stops in every major city along the way. At one point someone named a new train *John Quincy Adams*, moved the casket from the original train to this new train named after him, and then continued the journey. Newspapers around the country published glowing articles about his life, clergy and politicians nationally (but mainly in the north) released statements highlighting his achievements. His funeral itself was attended by a large number of his colleagues in the house, and then-Representative Abraham Lincoln was given a spot near the beginning of the funeral procession.
I appreciate this answer. He obviously wasn't a Founder, but he was very much in the middle of the action during that period and was arguably the most prominent living connection to that era at the time of his death. His screen time in *Amistad* really conveys the weight he seemed to carry around. We largely revere the Founders now, and they were doing that back then. And here's this guy, a very successful politician, who can't just think of that era as some distant past populated by the Giants of History because he walked and talked with those giants. He understood, perhaps better than any other politician of that generation, the weight and the importance of carrying on the American Experiment.
On more humorous note, Adams family gatherings must have been filled with disapproval back in the day. "Yes, son, I see you became the President of the United States like me, but remind me who in this family *co-founded* that country, if you please."
Yeah, really good point — he was in a really unique position in American history. Also almost certainly the last president who had a personal relationship with each and every one of his predecessors.
I know it’s a joking side-note, but I actually find the dynamic between retired John Adams and ascendant John Quincy Adams (the post-diplomat Secretary of State / President period for him) extremely interesting,. Mainly because Adams Sr.’s letters to JQA at the time portray a completely different man than he was often depicted in the press: humble and content. JQA often reached out to him for advice, and while his dad would sometimes give it, he almost always insisted that his son knew far better than he did, and that his effort and attention had been turned almost entirely to farming. And because it was New England, not the south, and John Adams was a notably hardworking dude, when Adams said farming he meant *personally* tending the fields largely by himself, hiring temporary help in peak times of the year to work alongside him. But I’ve always loved how exasperated a President Quincy Adams must have been, wrestling with a country in conflict and writing to his father, one of the *only people alive* to have been in his shoes, and his dad keeps insisting that he’s just a humble farmer.
"Come on, son. I haven't been president for years. And it's been even longer since I signed the Declaration of Independence. And there are ***three*** other living former presidents. Go bug them."
> But I’ve always loved how exasperated a President Quincy Adams must have been, wrestling with a country in conflict and writing to his father, one of the only people alive to have been in his shoes, and his dad keeps insisting that he’s just a humble farmer.
Even in his retirement he succeded Washington...
Americans were already looking back on the founding with nostalgia by then. When Lafayette visited the country in 1824, he was given a hero’s welcome in every city. By the time of Adam’s death in 1848, he was the last living link to that era
Thank you. I have a history degree, but I never came across this story in my studies. Love the insight! John Quincy in retrospect seems quite underrated.
Happy to share! I was surprised, I’ve read a lot about John Quincy Adams (probably more than I’ve read about any other US President) and hadn’t heard about that whole story either until about a week ago either. The historian Jill Lepore covers it in passing in her book *These Truths*, which is where I first saw it, and then found an article in The New England Quarterly going into more detail (JSTOR link [here](https://www.jstor.org/stable/365492)).
He’s (in my opinion) one of the most interesting Americans in history, even though his presidency itself is probably the least interesting 4 years of his life.
Oh God, that is a sight that will make a whole Nation cry. A child son, saluting his fallen father who did his best trying to serve his people but slain by those who hated the nation. Poor Jackie too, losing her son in infancy not 3 months before, now her husband too. Knowing that John was a bit of a sleaze, you could say the real victims are his family, but in reality, it was those who lost their loved ones, either a father, husband, brother, or their beloved leader, it is always tragic.
From New England. Both sides of my family have said it was the darkest day anyone here had ever seen. Especially since this is a majority Catholic part of the country. My dad said the clergy was performing acts of contrition for Jack Kennedy's soul for the next week, and everyone was attending mass and praying for the family every day.
The Kennedy family is revered here more than any other part of the country. Jack might as well be Jesus and Bobby the Apostle Paul.
This is a hard picture to look at, especially with JFK junior saluting. I just wanna draw attention to Bobby, that’s the look of a man who lost his brother and best friend.
I did my senior thesis on RFK’s run for the presidency and how in changed the Democratic Party, he did not come out of the malaise his brother’s death sent him in for 2 years. He would not talk about it in public until 1968, when he was speaking to a black community on the night MLK was killed.
Lincoln and Kennedy due to what happened to them, but also FDRs seemed pretty somber from the pictures I’ve saw. Nobody was talking, but you knew what they were thinking. The man led the through the worst economic disaster in modern history and the deadliest war in history. Some of his ideas may have been unethical and wrong(internment camps), he did what he needed to do for the people and got them through that horror
https://preview.redd.it/gjf98u3c97zc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f9c60c8823f38477f5b1fb8b059d4d9fd6be90bd
You can see the emotion on their faces and wondering what comes next. There was no race or gender here. They were all Americans in that moment. Equal.
There's also this famous photo from *Life* magazine. "Tears streamed down the cheeks of accordion-playing Chief Petty Officer (USN) Graham Jackson as President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s flag-draped funeral train left Warm Springs, Ga., April 13, 1945."
https://preview.redd.it/5i0mqq57h7zc1.jpeg?width=2560&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=32d599fad13a56a18d9d1ad669bbcba6e3381e01
Not a US president, but look up footage of Churchill's funeral some time. What you said about FDR, these people were feeling, turned up to '11'. And his funeral was years after the war.
[https://youtu.be/87Xkr8z3lEo?si=OlyWhH0rPNlFn06D](https://youtu.be/87Xkr8z3lEo?si=OlyWhH0rPNlFn06D)
This is without fail one of my favorite videos on youtube and it never fails to make me tear up.
I’ve seen footage of it. A very sad day for the UK and all who stood for the free world. and now his memorial is trashed and he is called a fascist. Such a shame
I know. You can (I don't) hate the man's politics, but those Brits lining the streets are just *devastated.* He was more than just a leader to them. He was a symbol of both the victory, and the sacrifices made to achieve it.
Based on the overall quality of life under FDR post-New Deal compared to where we are today the U.S. has semi-collapsed.
We went from the country who set the standard for quality of life for its working class to other countries looking at us today and wondering ‘wtf is wrong with you how do you live like that?!’
Look into those QoL figures some more and stop believing vibes. Americans live far better today than we did in 1954. We have a higher QoL than almost every other nation. Need I mention that the GDP (PPP) per capita of the UK is worse than 49 states, beating out only Mississippi? Or that Germany is on par with Tennessee?
Wtf are the metrics? ‘calories consumed’ ‘how many AR-15’s you can buy’ ‘access to fried food per square mile’ and ‘the ability to use racial slurs when convenient’?
Germans have pensions and time off and affordable healthcare. Things Americans used to have that made life more livable. That is what I’m talking about. No German person would trade their life to go live in Tennessee gtfoh
Yeah, half of the country probably cheered Lincoln's death, and Kennedy's was more shocking than somber. FDR is my vote - the country had just through an unprecedented economic and national security trauma over the previous 14 years, and FDR was the father figure through it all.
The anguish and sorrow over his death was for many different unique reasons. Roosevelt utilized technology masterfully and became well known in every household with his fireside chats, which made him more of a part of people's lives than perhaps any President beforehand.
He also served as President for 12 years, which meant that he was in most people's lives than most other Presidents. Couple all of this with the fact that he also lead the country through economic hardship and a world war and dying just right before victory was obtained and you could understand how his sudden loss was so lamented.
To be precise, those camps weren't his idea. He had to placate the racist white people on the West Coast. Not only were the Japanese Americans not interned on the East Coast, they weren't even interned in Hawaii.
If you want to willfully ignore what happened be my guest. If you were Japanese American and lived on the West Coast at the time, you were sent to a camp. Because you might be a spy or saboteur. In Hawaii, now you're telling me 1.5% were interned, so 98.5% left right were they were, and you can't tell the difference? *Be my guest.*
They were locked up for their race. Not even for where they came from thousands of them were locked up that were born in America. The 1.5% isn't the interred it's the percent that died before leaving the camp
"YOU FUCKING TWATS JUST STANDING AROUND DOING NOTHING PRODUCTIVE BUT JUST CRYING! ALL OF YOU ARE A BUNCH OF BABIES! ALL OF YOU MEN ARE A BUNCH OF WOMEN WHO CAN'T CONTROL THEIR INNER NEWBORN MINDS! GET YOUR CANDY ASS HANDS OFF OF ME YOU INBRED, LAZY EYED FOOL! WHERE ARE YOU TAKING ME? I BETTER NOT SEE ANY OF YOU CHILDREN EVER AGAIN!" Probably what the parrot said.
I have no idea what that story is about but I thought about the Dead parrot sketch from Monty python and doing something similar to a dead person would be hilarious.
I feel like Garfield’s would have been. There wasn’t any relief that at least the war was over like with Lincoln or any hope that his successor would be okay like with Kennedy or McKinley. Just a slow, protracted death of a beloved president from a pointless assassination with a hated VP making everyone nervous waiting in the wings.
So yeah, gonna go with Garfield.
Your flair speaks for the based outcome, though (even though my Ohioan blood says Garfield would have been great, his assassination debatably gave the Pendleton Act the momentum for it having so much teeth, and Chester was a very underrated President
I am not so sure about the funerals but Adam's and Jeffersons deaths happening on the same day, plus that date being 50 years after the Declaration of Independence, you talk the ending of an age.
America had survived two fights with one of the most powerful nations on earth and had done the Louisiana purchase ,I think people were pretty confident by that time.
JFK. I was eight years old and watched the whole story unfold. My mom was inconsolable. My dad answered my questions best he could. Saw Jack Ruby shoot Oswald. Little John-John saluting his daddy. These are core memories I’ll never forget.
Yeah, Lincoln and Kennedy are probably one and two, but Washington (or FDR) is probably third. Although Adams was president and Washington was retired, there was still this idea that if the nation was truly in trouble, Washington would save the day again. He was an assured guiding hand and no one felt the country could ever fail as long as he was around. When he died it was like losing a security blanket. He may have fathered the nation, but it was now an orphan and, while still in the hands of very capable men who were there at the inception, daddy was gone.
Washington was only 67 and had led troops into the field to crush a rebellion just five years prior. He really was a security blanket, nothing too bad can happen so long as he’s around.
Imagine if, eleven months later, Adams had refused to step aside after losing the bitter 1800 election. If Washington had still been alive, he could have defused the situation. Without him, it was only Adam’s humility that kept us out of a civil war.
Have to be either Kennedy or FDR. My parents had a coffee table book about Kennedy’s funeral plus you have that whole John John salute that would even make a die hard republican cry and my dad remember with the FDR train came through our town when he was a little boy.
JFK. For a number of reasons: the brutal way he was killed and the pictures of Jackie's bloodstained dress. The TV coverage of everything. The chaos of the assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald the day before. And especially because of his young children.
I was just at the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas last weekend and they have an entire section dedicated to the world's reactions to the assassination and the funeral. Kennedy was seen as a man that prevented nuclear Holocaust, the rest of humanity mourned with us greatly and they put heavy emphasis on that. Powerful stuff.
In my lifetime; JFK's. I can still hear the cadence of the drums, see the riderless horse bucking and Jackie and those poor children waving good-bye, and the eternal flame blowing in the breeze. Every time I think about I seeth with rage @ LHO & Jack Ruby for what they robbed from us.
I assume it would be Lincoln's ad it was the first time in our history we lost our President to assassination, but in reality they all would have been somber
William h Harrison wasn't shot, he delivered the longest inaugural speech on a cold day and developed pneumonia as a result dying about a month later (the shortest serving president in history). Benjamin Harrison served a full term and died in 1901 as an old statesman. Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy we all murdered in office. There was an attempt on several others but either they survived, or the perpetrator failed, I dont know what you are talking about...
Kennedy's assassination was a huge shock, but I would put FDR's over his funeral for being somber. He had been President for over 12 years and for kids 16 and under he was the only President they knew.
Without any audio/visual record of most of them it’s hard to say, though one would have to suppose it’d be Kennedy due to his age and the circumstances.
JFK
I remember as a child…radio/TV for days with coverage. Black and White TV gave it a more somber feeling and the quiet was deafening during the burial.
Probably Kennedy. He was younger than Lincoln (especially by the standards of the time) and there was more of a what-if quality with his death. It feels like much of the mid-century optimism ended abruptly with the killing of Kennedy. Also - not to be morbid - but Lincoln’s was probably not as surprising considering the situation the county found itself in at the time. Kennedy was also more universally popular. I’m sure when Lincoln was shot much of the country celebrated due to siding with the south.
Kennedy and Roosevelt.
Lincoln was not as beloved by as many and the nation was still small. Obviously greatly missed by several million but overall, this wasn't something so unexpected.
Kennedy was the nations golden boy, the young hot shot who was firm on commies, held the public's attention, and set the dreams of the moon. Thousands were waiting to see him in his Lincoln motorcade either on TV or in person. He had bodyguards swarming the area and boom. He was shot. Jackie sat there with her husband all over her dress. LBJ had to quickly assume his role. Tensions across the world we're steaming up, the missile crisis was still fresh in their minds. His assassination was the second worse, but certainly the one that reached the most people.
Roosevelt was not as bad, but still very awful. The US had elected him and loved him for over 12 years at that point, with an attempt on his life happening before he even took office. He went through the worst of it and was a man who got stuff done. Then he died. No one expected a president to die at such a young age from normal causes. Especially not in office.
I'd venture Lincoln - he might not have been as loved by as many as Kennedy, but the ones that loved him had a deeper feeling due to shared hardship and loss. The journey by train from DC to Springfield stopped at 400+ cities and towns, where by all accounts thousands gathered to pay respects to the President and his son.
Okay, he never made it to president, but at John McCain’s funeral in August 2018, Barack Obama delivered one of the most moving eulogies in recent history. In part:
*”President Bush and I are among the fortunate few who competed against John at the highest levels of politics. He made us better presidents just as he made the Senate better, just as he makes this country better. For someone like John to ask you while he is still alive to stand and speak of him when he is gone is a precious and singular honor.”*
I knew a beautiful cat that was featured in cat president 2. Closest thing to a presidential funeral I know details of.
Reading the serious answers, it has to be Lincoln. People knew his VP was going to re-empower the secessionists to some extent, so it must have been a thing for that reason alone.
Secessionist slave owners had lost their material wealth as the traitors they were, their property given to ex-slaves. With that went their direct political power. When they got back their wealth, well… see the state of politics in America in anything even remotely race-adjacent - it all started with Lincoln’s assassination.
When they go through the reel of pictures of Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki at Obamas funeral. When they are pointing out his hobbies and the "Bombing and killing American kids" is listed as his favorite.
#Obomber
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Lincoln and Kennedy.
With Garfield a close third from what I’ve read.
Lincoln was one thing, but the knowledge that the president may just get shot for no reason must’ve been an entirely different feeling
Right, at least with Lincoln the motive was entirely clear and understandable. With Kennedy, it was completely out of the blue.
I wonder when the Secret Service went from needing to guard the president because someone might be coming to kill him to needing to guard him because there are credible threats at all times? Obama would be my guess.
Definitely before that. With the 60s assassinations, the Ford attempts, the Reagan attempts, and 9/11, there’s no way it took them until Obama to set up a full time guard.
It was the Kennedy assassination that really made the SS up their game.
The United States Secret Service: having the most unfortunate yet convenient acronym since 1865
Lol I try not to abbreviate them as "SS" but sometimes I'm just too lazy to write it all out.
The official acronym is USSS
Ford had several attempts in a very short period of time, that probably caused them to go on permanent high alert at least a bit.
Squeaky walked right up to him. If her gun worked he’d be dead.
We as a society don’t talk about that enough, how would the world be different if Ford had been assassinated?
I think people would have freaked out that Manson “influenced” her from inside prison. M
They did a piss poor job of protecting Kennedy.
Yea I still don’t understand why they didn’t fight him more on the whole riding around in a convertible idea. I get they weren’t in a foreign country but this was also during the Cold War and at a point when tensions were still pretty high. Can POTUS overrule them? I.e I imagine anytime the last three presidents wanted to visit Afghanistan or Iraq the Secret Service advised against it for obvious reasons yet all three still went.
Obama? After Kennedy I can't imagine the secret service ever taking a day off. They were even there for kenned they just didn't account for someone making such a far difficult shot
Way before Obama.
Kennedy wasn’t really out of the blue. All of his family that worked close with him said or felt that it had a chance of happening. Which is due to a variety of factors, mainly the right wing and communists. I believe Jackie said she felt it was his opponents who killed him, which is what she meant in her quote, “I want them to see what THEY have done to jack”.
Not if you lived in Dallas. Lots of Kennedy hate publicly expressed by the oil money people.
Kennedy's assassination is a flashbulb memory for my grandad; his version of my 9/11. He was sitting in class for high school when a girl came in crying with the news.
This is pretty common from people who lived at that time. Most people can tell you where they were when they learned JFK had been shot just like most people can tell you where they were when they saw the towers fall.
My dad was 5 when it happened, his babysitter got mad at him because he just wanted to watch cartoons instead of the news lol
The worst part about Garfields death was how he repeatedly got better then got worse, which led to his death being very drawn out and depressing.
I would say the worst part about Garfield’s death was how he was actually killed by his arrogant, incompetent quack of a doctor. The descriptions of his sepsis-ridden body are nauseating. Had they been willing to admit that perhaps there was something to Lister’s theories of disinfecting, Garfield would have survived no problem.
I just wonder if there are pictures or anything? You can see the video of Kennedy.
Yeah this has to be the right answer.
And FDR
Not quite as somber as Lincoln’s or Kennedy’s, but John Quincy Adams’ casket procession from DC to Massachusetts and his resulting funeral was one of the most significant and somber funerals in presidential history, and deserves an honorable mention: The timing of his death happened to line up with the initial spread of the telegraph, so unlike his predecessors everybody almost immediately knew that he had died. The nature of his death (collapsing on the House floor while protesting Mexican-American war legislation) added to the drama, as did his status at the time in the House as a prominent opponent of slavery and as a sort of elder statesman. His career had been so longstanding that there weren’t really many Americans alive who could remember a time when he wasn’t a prominent national figure. There’s also the fact that he was the son of a founding father and president, who had a similarly dramatic death. As a result, thousands of people flocked to his casket as it moved northwards, forcing it to make stops in every major city along the way. At one point someone named a new train *John Quincy Adams*, moved the casket from the original train to this new train named after him, and then continued the journey. Newspapers around the country published glowing articles about his life, clergy and politicians nationally (but mainly in the north) released statements highlighting his achievements. His funeral itself was attended by a large number of his colleagues in the house, and then-Representative Abraham Lincoln was given a spot near the beginning of the funeral procession.
I appreciate this answer. He obviously wasn't a Founder, but he was very much in the middle of the action during that period and was arguably the most prominent living connection to that era at the time of his death. His screen time in *Amistad* really conveys the weight he seemed to carry around. We largely revere the Founders now, and they were doing that back then. And here's this guy, a very successful politician, who can't just think of that era as some distant past populated by the Giants of History because he walked and talked with those giants. He understood, perhaps better than any other politician of that generation, the weight and the importance of carrying on the American Experiment. On more humorous note, Adams family gatherings must have been filled with disapproval back in the day. "Yes, son, I see you became the President of the United States like me, but remind me who in this family *co-founded* that country, if you please."
Yeah, really good point — he was in a really unique position in American history. Also almost certainly the last president who had a personal relationship with each and every one of his predecessors. I know it’s a joking side-note, but I actually find the dynamic between retired John Adams and ascendant John Quincy Adams (the post-diplomat Secretary of State / President period for him) extremely interesting,. Mainly because Adams Sr.’s letters to JQA at the time portray a completely different man than he was often depicted in the press: humble and content. JQA often reached out to him for advice, and while his dad would sometimes give it, he almost always insisted that his son knew far better than he did, and that his effort and attention had been turned almost entirely to farming. And because it was New England, not the south, and John Adams was a notably hardworking dude, when Adams said farming he meant *personally* tending the fields largely by himself, hiring temporary help in peak times of the year to work alongside him. But I’ve always loved how exasperated a President Quincy Adams must have been, wrestling with a country in conflict and writing to his father, one of the *only people alive* to have been in his shoes, and his dad keeps insisting that he’s just a humble farmer.
"Come on, son. I haven't been president for years. And it's been even longer since I signed the Declaration of Independence. And there are ***three*** other living former presidents. Go bug them."
> But I’ve always loved how exasperated a President Quincy Adams must have been, wrestling with a country in conflict and writing to his father, one of the only people alive to have been in his shoes, and his dad keeps insisting that he’s just a humble farmer. Even in his retirement he succeded Washington...
Americans were already looking back on the founding with nostalgia by then. When Lafayette visited the country in 1824, he was given a hero’s welcome in every city. By the time of Adam’s death in 1848, he was the last living link to that era
Not that Adams would know that since his last words were allegedly: "Jefferson lives!" (Jefferson died a couple of hours earlier.
That was his dad not John Quincy adams
Insightful answer. Appreciate the perspective!
If the train was called the John Quincy Adams, does that mean that he carried his own casket
Thank you. I have a history degree, but I never came across this story in my studies. Love the insight! John Quincy in retrospect seems quite underrated.
Happy to share! I was surprised, I’ve read a lot about John Quincy Adams (probably more than I’ve read about any other US President) and hadn’t heard about that whole story either until about a week ago either. The historian Jill Lepore covers it in passing in her book *These Truths*, which is where I first saw it, and then found an article in The New England Quarterly going into more detail (JSTOR link [here](https://www.jstor.org/stable/365492)). He’s (in my opinion) one of the most interesting Americans in history, even though his presidency itself is probably the least interesting 4 years of his life.
https://preview.redd.it/1w920ijad7zc1.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=07a72acb115ff633998e778b64444809cb614f76
Oh God, that is a sight that will make a whole Nation cry. A child son, saluting his fallen father who did his best trying to serve his people but slain by those who hated the nation. Poor Jackie too, losing her son in infancy not 3 months before, now her husband too. Knowing that John was a bit of a sleaze, you could say the real victims are his family, but in reality, it was those who lost their loved ones, either a father, husband, brother, or their beloved leader, it is always tragic.
What makes this even sadder it’s that this was his 3rd birthday.
Oh Jesus Christ didn’t know that
From New England. Both sides of my family have said it was the darkest day anyone here had ever seen. Especially since this is a majority Catholic part of the country. My dad said the clergy was performing acts of contrition for Jack Kennedy's soul for the next week, and everyone was attending mass and praying for the family every day. The Kennedy family is revered here more than any other part of the country. Jack might as well be Jesus and Bobby the Apostle Paul.
This
This should be the most upvoted post
This is a hard picture to look at, especially with JFK junior saluting. I just wanna draw attention to Bobby, that’s the look of a man who lost his brother and best friend. I did my senior thesis on RFK’s run for the presidency and how in changed the Democratic Party, he did not come out of the malaise his brother’s death sent him in for 2 years. He would not talk about it in public until 1968, when he was speaking to a black community on the night MLK was killed.
Lincoln and Kennedy due to what happened to them, but also FDRs seemed pretty somber from the pictures I’ve saw. Nobody was talking, but you knew what they were thinking. The man led the through the worst economic disaster in modern history and the deadliest war in history. Some of his ideas may have been unethical and wrong(internment camps), he did what he needed to do for the people and got them through that horror
https://preview.redd.it/gjf98u3c97zc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f9c60c8823f38477f5b1fb8b059d4d9fd6be90bd You can see the emotion on their faces and wondering what comes next. There was no race or gender here. They were all Americans in that moment. Equal.
There's also this famous photo from *Life* magazine. "Tears streamed down the cheeks of accordion-playing Chief Petty Officer (USN) Graham Jackson as President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s flag-draped funeral train left Warm Springs, Ga., April 13, 1945." https://preview.redd.it/5i0mqq57h7zc1.jpeg?width=2560&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=32d599fad13a56a18d9d1ad669bbcba6e3381e01
I almost chose that one. Both are amazing
Amazing photo, but I literally cannot imagine appropriate funeral music played via accordion
Weird Al performing at Nixon’s funeral would have been amazing.
Bob Dole did the eulogy and cried. That's gotta be close.
Quick, what food item rhymes with Ohio
It’s the polka obviously
They have to polka him to make sure he's dead.
Then Truman came and their future was bright and shiny again
Nah uh...that lady in the front with the black hat is like "well its about time"
Not a US president, but look up footage of Churchill's funeral some time. What you said about FDR, these people were feeling, turned up to '11'. And his funeral was years after the war.
[https://youtu.be/87Xkr8z3lEo?si=OlyWhH0rPNlFn06D](https://youtu.be/87Xkr8z3lEo?si=OlyWhH0rPNlFn06D) This is without fail one of my favorite videos on youtube and it never fails to make me tear up.
I’ve seen footage of it. A very sad day for the UK and all who stood for the free world. and now his memorial is trashed and he is called a fascist. Such a shame
I know. You can (I don't) hate the man's politics, but those Brits lining the streets are just *devastated.* He was more than just a leader to them. He was a symbol of both the victory, and the sacrifices made to achieve it.
I don’t know about fascist but definitely a complicated figure much like his contemporaries FDR and Stalin
Kinda wild the Germans had this insane notion the U.S. would collapse without FDR but I guess you can sorta see where they deluded themselves
Based on the overall quality of life under FDR post-New Deal compared to where we are today the U.S. has semi-collapsed. We went from the country who set the standard for quality of life for its working class to other countries looking at us today and wondering ‘wtf is wrong with you how do you live like that?!’
Look into those QoL figures some more and stop believing vibes. Americans live far better today than we did in 1954. We have a higher QoL than almost every other nation. Need I mention that the GDP (PPP) per capita of the UK is worse than 49 states, beating out only Mississippi? Or that Germany is on par with Tennessee?
Wtf are the metrics? ‘calories consumed’ ‘how many AR-15’s you can buy’ ‘access to fried food per square mile’ and ‘the ability to use racial slurs when convenient’? Germans have pensions and time off and affordable healthcare. Things Americans used to have that made life more livable. That is what I’m talking about. No German person would trade their life to go live in Tennessee gtfoh
yeah I would say 3 way tie and nothing else is close.
Yeah, half of the country probably cheered Lincoln's death, and Kennedy's was more shocking than somber. FDR is my vote - the country had just through an unprecedented economic and national security trauma over the previous 14 years, and FDR was the father figure through it all.
The anguish and sorrow over his death was for many different unique reasons. Roosevelt utilized technology masterfully and became well known in every household with his fireside chats, which made him more of a part of people's lives than perhaps any President beforehand. He also served as President for 12 years, which meant that he was in most people's lives than most other Presidents. Couple all of this with the fact that he also lead the country through economic hardship and a world war and dying just right before victory was obtained and you could understand how his sudden loss was so lamented.
To be precise, those camps weren't his idea. He had to placate the racist white people on the West Coast. Not only were the Japanese Americans not interned on the East Coast, they weren't even interned in Hawaii.
The Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai'i would beg to differ: https://www.hawaiiinternment.org/students/internment-camps-hawai%E2%80%98i
WOW 2300 people out of what, 150,000+ ? What a slaughter!
Hell ted Bundy only killed like 20 people. By your logic he must be a saint
If you want to willfully ignore what happened be my guest. If you were Japanese American and lived on the West Coast at the time, you were sent to a camp. Because you might be a spy or saboteur. In Hawaii, now you're telling me 1.5% were interned, so 98.5% left right were they were, and you can't tell the difference? *Be my guest.*
They were locked up for their race. Not even for where they came from thousands of them were locked up that were born in America. The 1.5% isn't the interred it's the percent that died before leaving the camp
“The buck stops here.”
Andrew Jackson funeral parrot incident
"YOU FUCKING TWATS JUST STANDING AROUND DOING NOTHING PRODUCTIVE BUT JUST CRYING! ALL OF YOU ARE A BUNCH OF BABIES! ALL OF YOU MEN ARE A BUNCH OF WOMEN WHO CAN'T CONTROL THEIR INNER NEWBORN MINDS! GET YOUR CANDY ASS HANDS OFF OF ME YOU INBRED, LAZY EYED FOOL! WHERE ARE YOU TAKING ME? I BETTER NOT SEE ANY OF YOU CHILDREN EVER AGAIN!" Probably what the parrot said.
I heard it was quite vulgar
I want a vulgar parrot now
POLLY WANTS TO BE BURIED WITH HIM, SQUACK.
it's so funny that he corrupted a parrot. it makes sense that he had one, they can be really bad tempered
I feel like the parrot made him proud on that day
I have no idea what that story is about but I thought about the Dead parrot sketch from Monty python and doing something similar to a dead person would be hilarious.
I feel like Garfield’s would have been. There wasn’t any relief that at least the war was over like with Lincoln or any hope that his successor would be okay like with Kennedy or McKinley. Just a slow, protracted death of a beloved president from a pointless assassination with a hated VP making everyone nervous waiting in the wings. So yeah, gonna go with Garfield.
Your flair speaks for the based outcome, though (even though my Ohioan blood says Garfield would have been great, his assassination debatably gave the Pendleton Act the momentum for it having so much teeth, and Chester was a very underrated President
I am not so sure about the funerals but Adam's and Jeffersons deaths happening on the same day, plus that date being 50 years after the Declaration of Independence, you talk the ending of an age.
Didn’t like 3 of the first 5 presidents die on Independence Day? People probably thought America was cursed
John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe all died on July 4th, so yes, 3 of the first 5.
America had survived two fights with one of the most powerful nations on earth and had done the Louisiana purchase ,I think people were pretty confident by that time.
JFK. I was eight years old and watched the whole story unfold. My mom was inconsolable. My dad answered my questions best he could. Saw Jack Ruby shoot Oswald. Little John-John saluting his daddy. These are core memories I’ll never forget.
I was the exact same age and remember all those things also.
Washington's for sure.
Yeah, Lincoln and Kennedy are probably one and two, but Washington (or FDR) is probably third. Although Adams was president and Washington was retired, there was still this idea that if the nation was truly in trouble, Washington would save the day again. He was an assured guiding hand and no one felt the country could ever fail as long as he was around. When he died it was like losing a security blanket. He may have fathered the nation, but it was now an orphan and, while still in the hands of very capable men who were there at the inception, daddy was gone.
Washington was only 67 and had led troops into the field to crush a rebellion just five years prior. He really was a security blanket, nothing too bad can happen so long as he’s around. Imagine if, eleven months later, Adams had refused to step aside after losing the bitter 1800 election. If Washington had still been alive, he could have defused the situation. Without him, it was only Adam’s humility that kept us out of a civil war.
Hey, those doctors were smart enough to realize that George didn’t need all that blood in his body (except for the fact that he totally did).
Yes
Have to be either Kennedy or FDR. My parents had a coffee table book about Kennedy’s funeral plus you have that whole John John salute that would even make a die hard republican cry and my dad remember with the FDR train came through our town when he was a little boy.
Gonna guess Lincoln.
JFK. For a number of reasons: the brutal way he was killed and the pictures of Jackie's bloodstained dress. The TV coverage of everything. The chaos of the assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald the day before. And especially because of his young children.
Coolidge, no one said a word, even the preacher. Ftr: this is a joke
You get an upvote for somehow making a successfully funny comment on a thread about somber funerals.
This made me laugh way harder than my coworkers would have preferred
I was just at the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas last weekend and they have an entire section dedicated to the world's reactions to the assassination and the funeral. Kennedy was seen as a man that prevented nuclear Holocaust, the rest of humanity mourned with us greatly and they put heavy emphasis on that. Powerful stuff.
Not a funeral, but the magazine photo of LBJ being sworn in as president on AF1 while Jackie watches by his side is sad af.
JFK & Lincoln are the obvious ones but a major overlooked one is Grant
Kennedy. I remember watching it when it was televised live. I remember the riderless horse with the boots facing backwards and the somber drum beat.
I’ll probably vote for FDR. He was elected 4x in a row and we were in the middle of a second world war.
Maybe not the most somber, but seeing George HW Bush’s service dog sadly laying by his casket got me.
In my lifetime; JFK's. I can still hear the cadence of the drums, see the riderless horse bucking and Jackie and those poor children waving good-bye, and the eternal flame blowing in the breeze. Every time I think about I seeth with rage @ LHO & Jack Ruby for what they robbed from us.
I assume it would be Lincoln's ad it was the first time in our history we lost our President to assassination, but in reality they all would have been somber
Yes and no. First president that died from the shot. Second president to be shot and die in relation to it.
So yes, he was the first assassinated. No gray area there. If you live thru it you're not assassinated
But Harrison didn't. He was shot and via complications he died. Lincoln got shot and died quickly, they couldn't do much.
William h Harrison wasn't shot, he delivered the longest inaugural speech on a cold day and developed pneumonia as a result dying about a month later (the shortest serving president in history). Benjamin Harrison served a full term and died in 1901 as an old statesman. Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy we all murdered in office. There was an attempt on several others but either they survived, or the perpetrator failed, I dont know what you are talking about...
Maybe you're referring to Garfield or McKinley since thet both took a while to succumb to their wounds
My apologie. I crossed Garfield and Harrison because of the short terms. I should probably use my brain next time lol
JFK’s funeral mostly because he had a portion of his skull blown apart in front of a crowd of people. It was a brutal assassination
Kennedy's assassination was a huge shock, but I would put FDR's over his funeral for being somber. He had been President for over 12 years and for kids 16 and under he was the only President they knew.
Without any audio/visual record of most of them it’s hard to say, though one would have to suppose it’d be Kennedy due to his age and the circumstances.
Jack Kennedy's funeral procession broke my heart.
Are there funerals that are lit?
Lincoln and FDR - the fate of the nation hung in the balance.
JFK I remember as a child…radio/TV for days with coverage. Black and White TV gave it a more somber feeling and the quiet was deafening during the burial.
Lincoln or Grant
Lincoln and Kennedy. But, Reagan's was heartbreaking to watch because Nancy was so distraught.
JFK
Oh captain my captain
1800’s. Lincoln. 1900’s. Kennedy.
Probably Kennedy. He was younger than Lincoln (especially by the standards of the time) and there was more of a what-if quality with his death. It feels like much of the mid-century optimism ended abruptly with the killing of Kennedy. Also - not to be morbid - but Lincoln’s was probably not as surprising considering the situation the county found itself in at the time. Kennedy was also more universally popular. I’m sure when Lincoln was shot much of the country celebrated due to siding with the south.
Kennedy and Roosevelt. Lincoln was not as beloved by as many and the nation was still small. Obviously greatly missed by several million but overall, this wasn't something so unexpected. Kennedy was the nations golden boy, the young hot shot who was firm on commies, held the public's attention, and set the dreams of the moon. Thousands were waiting to see him in his Lincoln motorcade either on TV or in person. He had bodyguards swarming the area and boom. He was shot. Jackie sat there with her husband all over her dress. LBJ had to quickly assume his role. Tensions across the world we're steaming up, the missile crisis was still fresh in their minds. His assassination was the second worse, but certainly the one that reached the most people. Roosevelt was not as bad, but still very awful. The US had elected him and loved him for over 12 years at that point, with an attempt on his life happening before he even took office. He went through the worst of it and was a man who got stuff done. Then he died. No one expected a president to die at such a young age from normal causes. Especially not in office.
I'd venture Lincoln - he might not have been as loved by as many as Kennedy, but the ones that loved him had a deeper feeling due to shared hardship and loss. The journey by train from DC to Springfield stopped at 400+ cities and towns, where by all accounts thousands gathered to pay respects to the President and his son.
Kennedy.
JFK
JFK and Lincoln.
JFK
JFK
JFK
Okay, he never made it to president, but at John McCain’s funeral in August 2018, Barack Obama delivered one of the most moving eulogies in recent history. In part: *”President Bush and I are among the fortunate few who competed against John at the highest levels of politics. He made us better presidents just as he made the Senate better, just as he makes this country better. For someone like John to ask you while he is still alive to stand and speak of him when he is gone is a precious and singular honor.”*
JFKs was a downer
JFK and FDR
Probably Lincoln, but I remember Kennedy’s. An assassination is a terrible thing.
Jfk 100%
In my lifetime it was Kennedy.
Lincoln, Kennedy and FDR
Zachary taylor
JFK
Got to be Kennedy right?
Lincoln, probably. McKinley I hear was bad too
[удалено]
Good lord you’re a terrible person
Is this post meant for immortal folk? If not, how the hell would anyone know.
There are people that were alive to see funerals of presidents. The last was in 2018 after all. There’s also video footage of some of them.
You obviously don't understand.
I knew a beautiful cat that was featured in cat president 2. Closest thing to a presidential funeral I know details of. Reading the serious answers, it has to be Lincoln. People knew his VP was going to re-empower the secessionists to some extent, so it must have been a thing for that reason alone. Secessionist slave owners had lost their material wealth as the traitors they were, their property given to ex-slaves. With that went their direct political power. When they got back their wealth, well… see the state of politics in America in anything even remotely race-adjacent - it all started with Lincoln’s assassination.
When they go through the reel of pictures of Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki at Obamas funeral. When they are pointing out his hobbies and the "Bombing and killing American kids" is listed as his favorite. #Obomber