November 24

The shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald was captured live on television

England have

The man accused of assassinating the US President, John F Kennedy, has himself been shot dead in a Dallas police station.

Lee Harvey Oswald, a 24-year-old former Marine, was being transferred from police headquarters to the county jail, at the centre of a large crowd of police officers, reporters and camera crews.

The event was being covered live on television, and Americans across the country watched in astonishment as a man - later identified as Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner - stepped forward, drew a gun and shot Mr Oswald at point-blank range.

Mr Oswald fell to the floor, grasping his stomach, as a confused scuffle broke out between police, reporters and the gunman.

An ambulance rushed Mr Oswald to the Parkland Hospital - the same hospital which had fought to save President Kennedy's life two days earlier - but he died within minutes of his arrival.

Mr Oswald was about to stand trial accused of the murder of the president.

He was arrested about an hour after the assassination, carried out as the President's motorcade passed through the Dealey Plaza in Dallas.

He was initially taken into custody for the murder of a policeman, JD Tippit, who appears to have recognised him and approached him just 45 minutes after the killing of the President.

Soon after, Mr Oswald was also charged with the President's assassination.

He strongly denied that he carried out the assassination, saying to reporters, "I'm just a patsy."

Police gave no explanation of how Jack Ruby came to be in the police headquarters.

The building had been under heavy guard after several calls making threats against Oswald's life.

Ruby came to Dallas from Chicago 10 years ago.

He runs a downtownstripteaseclub, and is said to have links with organised criminals.

Police said Ruby had told them, "I didn't want to be a hero - I did it for Jacqueline Kennedy."

They said he wanted to spare the president's wife the ordeal of the trial of the man accused of killing her husband.

Ruby has been formally charged with murder and is now being held in custody without bail.    

Opposition leader Vaclav Havel with returned exile Alexander Dubcek (right)

Party Leader Milos Jakes had called an emergency meeting of his government this morning after admitting to underestimating the force of the pro-democracy movement.

Twenty-four members of the Politburo and the Secretariat stood down - mainly the same hardliners who called in the Soviet tanks in 1968 to crush the "Prague Spring" reformers.

And the hero of that movement, Alexander Dubcek, has returned from exile to a triumphant welcome in Prague.

He told a jubilant crowd of 250,000 people in Wenceslas Square: "My idea of socialism with a human face is living with a new generation".

He also said the new Civic Reform - the broad coalition of opposition groups formed only a few days ago - represented "all the people".

Pressure on the Czech Communist Party had been building for months as they found themselves increasingly out of step with other Warsaw Pact countries and their own people.

Two weeks ago the change sweeping Europe resulted in the breaching of the continent's most potent symbol of the West-East divide - the Berlin Wall.

Even the Kremlin - led by reforming President Mikhail Gorbachev - has indicated it wished to see change in Czechoslovakia.

Soviet Communist Party newspaper Pravda said recently the Czech people had "lost faith" in their leaders.

And after the resignations Moscow called for a "greater understanding" between the Czech authorities and those campaigning for reform.

striptease: a form of erotic entertainment in which a dancer gradually undresses to music（脫衣舞）