From the editor: A place, in time

It startles you the first time.

You are driving down Elm St. toward the point where the towering blocks of downtown fizzle to an end when the realization comes. That is the Texas Schoolbook Depository building. That is the Grassy Knoll. This is Dealey Plaza, where the world stopped for a moment, where a new generation was cast adrift, where the imagined America began to unravel.

On Nov. 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy—America’s youngest president—was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas.

It was 50 years ago, yet the sights and sounds of that day continue to burn intensely in t...