I was in the hallway of my public school. It was during class time, and I don't know why I
wasn't in class. Someone in the hall told me the president was dead.
Like sensei, I thought it was odd, because I have a prime minister. And why, or how, a Canadian schoolchild could have found out, in the middle of the day, I never found out.
sensei is also right about all the things that are not associated with Kennedy; he died before we really could connect them. And LBJ got the rap for them all.
The period in the early 60's, with Jackie, was the time of Camelot on the Potomac: as the youngest president with a beautiful wife, the economy doing great, and a country ready for new challenges. The news media then were lapdogs--and only showed the myth--not the watchdogs they were during Watergate, nor the attack dogs they have now become.
For many, the assassination of JFK is considered the beginning of the consciousness of the 60's. The end of which was the shooting of the 4 students at Kent State.