The day when U.S. President John F. Kennedy was shot and mortally wounded by Lee Harvey Oswald at 12:29 PM Central Time in Dallas, Texas. The event marked the beginning of social consciousness in the 1960s in America. Anyone over the age of five at the time will probably be able to answer the question "Where were you when Kennedy was shot?" precisely.
The day also marked a period of television news coverage unequaled until September 11, 2001. For days, nothing but news appeared on major television networks, except during brief periods when local stations went off the air. Walter Cronkite is often singularly identified with this news coverage, and film of him nearly breaking down on camera is commonly remembered. This was the first major event in U.S. history to occur in an age where most households either owned a television or had come to trust it as a source of pertinent information.
November 22, 1963 occurred over 17 years before I was born.