On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. The event thrust Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson into the presidency. A man widely considered to be one of the most expert and brilliant politicians of his time, Johnson left office a little more than five years later as one of the least popular presidents in American history. The man who had risen from the poor Hill Country of Texas to become an incredibly powerful Senate majority leader, vice president, and president of the United States returned to Texas demoralized and discredited. He died four years later, a few hundred feet from the place of his birth.