Following his assassination in Dallas, the body of John F. Kennedy was flown back to Washington, D.C. He laid in repose in the White House’s East Room for twenty-four hours. Kennedy later laid in state in the Capitol rotunda before a horse-drawn caisson took his casket to Arlington National Cemetery where he was interred just below Arlington House on Nov. 25, 1963.
Kennedy’s friend and architect John Carl Warnecke designed the grave site, which Jacqueline Kennedy stipulated must include an eternal flame. After several years of design work and construction, the grave site was dedicated and opened to the public on March 15, 1967.
