On This Day – 6th March

The Zapruder film is a silent, colour motion picture sequence filmed by Abraham Zapruder with a home-movie camera as U.S. President John F. Kennedy's motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. It unexpectedly captured the President's assassination.

The film was first broadcast publicly on March 6th 1975 – nearly twelve years later – on the ABC late-night television show Good Night America, hosted by Geraldo Rivera. Assassination researchers Robert Groden and Dick Gregory presented the footage.

The public's response and outrage to its broadcast quickly led to the forming of the Hart-Schweiker investigation, contributed to the Church Committee Investigation on Intelligence Activities by the United States, and also resulted in the formation of the House Select Committee on Assassinations investigation.

Although not the only footage that exists of the shooting – at least 32 people in Dealey Plaza known to have made film or still photographs at or around the time of the shooting – it has been called the most complete, giving a relatively clear view from a somewhat elevated position. It was an important part of the Warren Commission hearings and all subsequent investigations of the assassination, and is one of the most studied pieces of film in history. Of greatest notoriety is the film's capture of the fatal shot when the presidential limousine was almost exactly in front of, and slightly below, the camera's position.

Cultural significance

In 1994, the Zapruder film footage was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and was selected for permanent preservation in the National Film Registry.

In December 1999, the Zapruder family donated the film's copyright to The Sixth Floor Museum, in the Texas School Book Depository building at Dealey Plaza, along with one of the first-generation copies made on November 22nd 1963, and other copies of the film and frame enlargements once held by Life magazine, which had been since returned

In 1999 an arbitration panel ordered the United States government to recompense Zapruder's heirs for giving the film to the National Archives. The copyright was however retained by the family and in December of the same year it was donated to The Sixth Floor Museum, in the Texas School Book Depository building at Dealey Plaza, along with one of the first-generation copies made on November 22nd 1963 as well as other copies of the film and frame enlargements once held by Life magazine.

Today the question is this – what value was finally placed upon the film in 1999?

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