One of the last photos of JFK

Vintage Photos That Can't Be Ignored

One of the last photos of JFK
© Source: soiurce: national archives
History books have one story to tell, but have you ever wondered if there's more to the well known tales that we learn in school? Each year, photos and files are declassified by governments across the world that prove that there's more to history than what you've been taught. The following photos have been recently declassified and colorized... they'll change how you see history forever.

If you're looking through the history books for the following stories and colorized photos you're not going to find them. Look closer to find out how history really played out...

When President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, it was one of the most traumatic events in American history. At the time no one had ever seen anything like that happen. And the fact that it was being reported in real time was truly harrowing for people around the country.

President Kennedy wasn't the only person to suffer from the sting of a bullet that day. James T. Tague was shot by a stray bullet meant for the president while standing in the traffic of the caravan. He told ABC:

I was standing on the triple underpass at the time and was wounded by a fragment that bounced off the pavement. It certainly didn't sound like a rifle shot. It was a loud cannon-type sound and it stung me on my right cheek. I wondered what had just happened and a man in a suit who turned out to be a deputy sheriff in plain clothes ran up and asked what had happened. Across the street people were sobbing, 'His head exploded.' The policeman said 'Whose head?' It was the president's. Then he looked at me and said, 'You have blood on your face.'

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Gawkers after the JFK assassination
© Source: source: jfklibrary
When President Kennedy was assassination on November 22, 1963, as his car passed through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, all eyes were on the Lone Star State. Witnesses to this horrible event couldn't forget what they'd seen and felt that day. Some screamed, some cried, and some took photos and grainy 8mm footage.

Jenyce Gush spoke to ABC about witnessing the assassination when she was only 14-years-old, she said that after witnessing the shooting she fled to a loca drugstore to escape the chaos:

It was like a moment frozen in time. It was so quiet and I looked at the store manager and she had tears running down her face. I remember putting my hands on my face and felt the tears. How could that have happened? I was heartsick.
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Lyndon B. Johnson during the Vietnam War
© Source: source: National Archives
No one in the government wants to inherit their position because of an assassination but Lyndon B. Johnson inherited more than a presidency, he inherited a war. When the problem in Vietnam fell into Johnson's lap he implored Congress to draft a resolution that gave him the authority to send the military into Vietnam without actually saying that the US was at war. On August 4, 1964, the White House claimed that the North Vietnamese military had attacked the U.S.S. Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin - but all was not as it seemed.

Prior to the attack on the Maddox, Gen. William C. Westmoreland, the head of U.S. forces in Vietnam, tutored the Vietnamese military on how to carry out raids on the North Vietnamese. Reports following the incident in the Gulf of Tonkin stated that North Vietnamese PT boats had “mistaken Maddox for a South Vietnamese escort vessel." Months later, Johnson was officially elected to the presidency and sent soldiers into combat without declaring war.

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President Kennedy with CIA Director John McCone
© Source: source: NSA
As the director of the CIA from 1961 to 1965, John McCone worked incredibly close to President Kennedy. It's believed that after the president's assassination that McCone played a major part in covering up the real story of what happened. He even told the Warren Commission that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination.

Philip Shenon, a former Washington and foreign correspondent for the New York Times, believes that McCone came close to perjury when he spoke with the Warren Commission. In 2013, the CIA declassified a document stating that McCone and other CIA officials kept "incendiary" information about the assassination under wraps. Even worse, McCone and his followers in the CIA were dedicated to keeping the agency focused on the "best truth." We'll never know what really happened.