President Kennedy on that dark yet sunny day in Dallas 50 years ago, minutes before he was assassinated.

November 22, 1963. "Overview of crowds of people waving as President John F. Kennedy and his wife sit in back of limousine during procession through downtown Dallas, Texas; Texas Governor John Connally and his wife ride in the limousine's jump seats." New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection, Library of Congress. View full size.

Sept. 12, 1953. Newport, Rhode Island. "Kennedy wedding -- Jacqueline Kennedy throwing the bouquet." Gelatin Silver print by Toni Frissell. View full size.

"Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, 1957." Wife of the up-and-coming young senator from Massachusetts. Medium format negative by Toni Frissell. View full size.

August 1961. Summer in Hyannis Port: "President John F. Kennedy driving a golf cart full of Kennedy [Shriver, Smith, Lawford] family children." Photo by Stanley Tretick for the Look magazine assignment "Uncle Jack." View full size.

Washington, D.C., 1929. The caption for this one is, disappointingly, NO CAPTION. That looks like Herbert Hoover on the left. Who are the others? What about the lady? Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative. View full size.

March 4, 1913. "Inauguration of Woodrow Wilson as 28th President of the United States." 5x7 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection. View full size.

August 1936. "President Roosevelt greeted on tour of drought area. Near Bismarck, North Dakota." Medium-format nitrate negative by Arthur Rothstein for the Resettlement Administration. View full size.

Washington, D.C., 1921. "Harding Cabinet group." Warren Harding, Vice President Calvin Coolidge and members of the new president's Cabinet at the White House. National Photo Company Collection glass negative. View full size.

New York circa 1920. "Caruso family." A portrait made the year before the legendary tenor's untimely death: Enrico Caruso with wife Dorothy Park Benjamin and their infant daughter Gloria, along with the family of his son Rodolfo Caruso. 5x7 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection. View full size.

September 18, 1929. "Mr. & Mrs. Lindbergh." Aviator Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, four months after they married, at Bolling Field en route to South America. Charles, the pioneering aviator, was probably the most famous person in America at the time; Anne would become an accomplished aviator in her own right, as well as one of the best-selling writers of the 20th century. Some three years after this picture was taken, the tragedy of their child's murder helped define the modern phenomenon of mass-media super-celebrity. From Anne's 2001 obituary in the New York Times: "Nothing, not even Lindbergh's 1927 landing in Paris, had prepared them for the carnival of reporters, photographers, con artists, curiosity-seekers, vandals and crazy people who invaded their lives after their baby was kidnapped. Americans would not experience a similar flood of publicity until the O. J. Simpson murder trial of the 1990s." National Photo Company Collection glass negative. View full size.

August 4, 1923. Washington, D.C. "Coolidge and wife." Grace and Calvin Coolidge (wearing a mourning band), two days after his ascension to the presidency following the death of Warren Harding. National Photo Co. View full size.

November 1930. Washington, D.C. "MacArthur, Douglas, General." Pipe, corncob, evidently at the cleaners. Harris & Ewing glass negative. View full size.

New York, December 20, 1909. "S.L. Clemens." Samuel Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain, aboard the Bermudian after a trip to Bermuda, four months before his death. 5x7 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection. View full size.

April 5, 1940. Washington, D.C. "Informal photo of J. Edgar Hoover, Director of FBI, Department of Justice." Harris & Ewing glass negative. View full size.

"Francis Sayre Jr., baby, with Woodrow Wilson." The President and new grandson in 1915, less than a year after the death of his wife Ellen. View full size.