FARGO — It was as if the entire nation, all at once, let out a silent cry of grief.

Kennedy had been shot. President John F. Kennedy — popular, handsome, young, in his own time an icon of the age — was dead.

It was Nov. 22, 1963.

Only the newspapers that printed evening editions on that fateful Friday were able to publish the big news that same day. The Rochester Post-Bulletin splashed a giant all-caps headline that filled up almost the entire top-third of its front page: "Pres. Kennedy Assassinated!"

"Kennedy Assassinated," echoed the Fargo Forum, opting out of the exclamation point.

"President shot to death from ambush in Dallas," wrote the Brainerd Daily Dispatch, above a large portrait photo of Kennedy. "President Kennedy slain by assassin in Dallas," wrote the Grand Forks

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