Video: 'President John F. Kennedy's First Televised News Conference of January 25, 1961'

(Wednesday, January 25, 1961, 6:00 p.m. EST) — Five days after being inaugurated as the 35th president of the United States, John F. Kennedy held the first ever live presidential news conference tonight at the State Department Auditorium in Washington, D.C.

Kennedy announced that the Soviet Union had freed the two surviving crewmen of a USAF RB-47 reconnaissance plane shot down over the Barents Sea on July 1, 1960.

The news conference, attended by 418 reporters, was carried live on television and radio and viewed by an estimated 65 million viewers on TV.