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Lee Harvey Oswald (October 18, 1939 - November 24, 1963) was an American assassin and former Marine who, according to five government investigations,[n 1] shot and killed President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963.
As a marine, Oswald defected to the Soviet Union in October 1959. He lived in the Soviet Union until June 1962, at which time he returned to the United States. Oswald was initially arrested for the murder of police officer J. D. Tippit, who was killed on a Dallas street approximately 45 minutes after President Kennedy was shot. Oswald would later be charged with the assassination of President Kennedy as well but denied shooting anybody. Two days later, while being transferred from police headquarters to the county jail, Oswald was shot and killed by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby in full view of television cameras broadcasting live.
In 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald acted alone in assassinating Kennedy, firing three shots. This conclusion was supported by prior investigations carried out by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Secret Service, andDallas Police Department.[1][2]
Despite forensic, ballistic, and eyewitness evidence supporting the lone gunman theory, public opinion polls taken over the years have shown that a majority of Americans believe that Oswald did not act alone, but conspired with others to kill the president,[3] and the assassination has spawned numerous conspiracy theories. In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that Oswald fired the shots that killed Kennedy, but differed from previous investigations in concluding that "scientific acoustical evidence establishes a high probability that two gunmen fired at President John F. Kennedy".[4][5] The House Select Committee's acoustical evidence has since been discredited
