It is the most famous home video in history.
Fifty years ago today businessman Abraham Zapruder stood on a concrete pedestal along Elm Street in Dallas holding a Model 414 PD Bell & Howell Zoomatic Director Series camera. Like hundreds of other people that sunny day, Zapruder wanted to catch a glimpse of President John F. Kennedy’s motorcade as it passed through the city.
What Zapruder instead saw and captured on his camera would be one of the greatest political tragedies in American history—and the source of countless conspiracy theories.
It’s called the Zapruder film—a silent, 26.6 second long movie which shows Kennedy being shot in the head.
Since that harrowing day, the film has been dissected, remastered, and studied tirelessly. The latest iteration of the film comes as a GIF which reconstructs the film frame-by-frame in order to eliminate the shakiness.
The result is haunting.
The GIF was posted on Reddit more than two weeks ago and, like the original Zapruder film itself, is raising questions as to what really happened that day.
Photo via JFK Library
