Dallas ? Thousands of mourners, conspiracy theorists and the just plain curious gathered Saturday along the downtown street where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated 40 years earlier, with many of them recalling where they had been at the very moment they heard the news.

Some looked up to the sixth floor of the former Texas School Book Depository, the building from which officials say Lee Harvey Oswald fired the deadly shots at 12:30 p.m. on Nov. 22, 1963. Others gravitated toward an “X” painted on the pavement to mark the spot where Kennedy’s convertible was passing when he was hit.

A makeshift memorial with dozens of bouquets, signs and flags of the U.S. and other countries was assembled nearby — one of several memorials around the country for the fallen president.

“John F. Kennedy has been gone nearly as long as he lived, yet the memory of him still brings pride to our nation and a feeling of loss that defies the passing of years,” President Bush said in a written statement.

Near Washington, Kennedy family members gathered at Arlington National Cemetery early in the day to pray beside the eternal flame that marks the president’s grave.

Kennedy’s daughter, Caroline Kennedy, her husband and children, and Kennedy’s brother, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., were joined by Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, archbishop of Washington.

The cemetery opened to the public after the family left. Many visitors left flowers, photographs of President Kennedy, poems and American flags.

Standing at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Jim Johns remembered being in his seventh-grade class when the announcement of Kennedy’s assassination came over the school intercom.

“It was devastating,” said Johns, 52, of Houston. “My teacher started crying, all the girls started crying, all the boys started cursing the Russians — that’s who we thought it was. It was terrible. We all wanted to go to war.”

On the 40th anniversary of his death, members of the Kennedy family gather at dawn to pray beside the grave of slain President John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va. From right to left in front row are Victoria Kennedy, the wife of Sen. Edward Kennedy; JFK's brother, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.; Ethel Kennedy, Robert Kennedy's widow; JFK's daughter Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, her son, John Schlossberg, husband Edwin Schlossberg, and daughters Rose Schlossberg and Tatiana Schlossberg.

David Heath, 46, of Sheffield, England, said he booked a flight months ago to be in Dallas for the anniversary. He remarked at how little has changed in the area in the 40 years since the assassination.

“It’s exactly as it was. Part of the irony is it’s just a beautiful place and for it to happen here — that sort of fracture between beauty and terror,” Heath said.

Dallas police blocked off Elm Street — the site where Kennedy was shot — for the commemoration, but the city did not conduct a formal service.

As 12:30 p.m. neared, a bellowing voice narrated the seconds leading up to the fatal shots from a sound stage on the grassy knoll, where some people believe other shots were fired. Drummers in blue and plaid solemnly marched down Elm Street.