24 Hours After: The JFK Assassination

24 Hours After, an original podcast from The HISTORY® Channel, takes listeners on a deep dive into the immediate aftermath of critical moments that reshaped the world. Each season, we will experience one of these key events with immersive sound design, to put us behind the eyes and ears of those who were there and learn how their minute-by-minute decisions rippled into the future. Hosted by historian Steve Gillon, we speak to experts, authors, and eyewitnesses to paint a full picture of each turning point in history. 24 Hours After: The JFK Assassination (season one) will unpack this unforgettable incident with unprecedented detail. We'll hear from the Secret Service agent who jumped on Kennedy's car after the shots were fired, a White House pool reporter who chased JFK's car to the hospital and saw his successor sworn in, as well as from numerous scholars who shed a light on often overlooked details from this story. Each episode puts us into the minds of one key player—Jackie Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, Lyndon Johnson, and more—to experience this tragedy as it happened and understand how history unfolded from their actions.

On the morning of November 22nd, 1963, Jackie Kennedy was in Dallas to support her husband’s re-election campaign. By that evening, she’ll be planning his funeral. How did Jackie survive that fateful day?

Lyndon Johnson was a has-been – sidelined by the Kennedy administration and drained of political influence. But in a moment, he’ll become the most powerful man in the world. How did he walk a political tightrope right into the Oval Office?

Robert Kennedy is hard at work investigating the mafia when he learns his brother has been shot. He jumps into action to protect JFK’s secrets, all the while wondering: was the assassination all his fault?

Lee Harvey Oswald thought defecting to the Soviet Union would set his troubled life on a new path. Instead, he found himself working a minimum wage job in Dallas, estranged from his wife… and with the Presidential motorcade right outside his window.

J.W. Fritz is Texas’s most celebrated lawman. When he finds Lee Oswald in his custody, he’ll have only hours to extract a confession while the world waits impatiently for answers. And then, everything goes wrong.

Traveling with JFK to Dallas were two of his closest aides – Kenneth O’Donnell and Dave Powers. With his sudden passing, they find themselves stuck between their loyalty to the President and their duty to the nation.

Jackie returns to Washington in shock and in mourning. But she’ll have no time to grieve: she needs to plan a funeral and protect her children, even as Lyndon Johnson and his administration are already moving into the White House.

How did the Kennedy assassination impact the nation in the hours that followed his death? And how did this event—and the decisions made by all those involved—alter the course of history?