A Piece Of History: The Knife That Jackie Kennedy Used To Cut Into JFK’s Shoulder, Revealing He Was Cake The Entire Time, Is Coming To The Smithsonian
The shocking loss of President John F. Kennedy on a fateful afternoon in Dallas, 1963, remains etched into the collective memory of all Americans. And now, for the first time, the public will have a chance to see one of the most important historical artifacts from that earth-shaking tragedy with their own eyes: The knife that Jackie Kennedy used to cut into JFK’s shoulder, revealing that he was cake the entire time, is coming to the Smithsonian!
Wow. Every U.S. citizen needs to make their way to Washington, D.C. to take advantage of this incredible opportunity to get up close and personal with history.
The new exhibit, which opens at the Smithsonian Museum early next month, will allow visitors to relive the final moments leading up to President Kennedy’s tragic demise, from the moment his motorcade began driving through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas to the moment that First Lady Jackie Kennedy yelled to the crowd, “Guess what, America! Your beloved president was nothing but dessert!” and sliced through the president’s arm to reveal that he was nothing more than a hyper-realistic chocolate cake with raspberry jam and chocolate ganache filling. A chilling radio broadcast from that tragic day plays on a loop throughout the exhibit, featuring vivid recordings of the gathering crowd cheering and shouting things like, “That’s definitely the president!” and “Here comes the real President Kennedy for sure!” As the visitors work their way through the exhibit, they will hear the cheers of the crowd suddenly turn to soul-wrenching cries of terror and anguish, along with a man’s frantic voice shouting, “Oh God! He was cake the whole time!” followed by another person in the crowd screaming in a voice choked with sobs, “It looked so real! I was definitely fooled!”
We’re not going to lie, this sounds incredibly intense, but it’s so important to visit this exhibit to bear witness to one of the most significant tragedies in our nation’s history.
The knife that Jackie used to slice into JFK has been meticulously preserved over the decades, and still features the original chocolate frosting smeared on the blade. Although Jackie tried to lick the frosting off of the knife shortly after slicing into the president, she was tackled by Secret Service agents before she could eat all of it, which means that the knife endures as an uncanny link to the past, transporting all who come to see it back to that one traumatic moment in our nation’s history where everything we thought we knew about the president and whether or not he was cake changed forever.
In addition to the knife, the Smithsonian exhibit will also feature some of the original paper plates that Jackie used to serve slices of the president to members of the horrified crowd, as well as the last remaining slice of JFK: a section of his face which features his nose (sculpted out of marzipan) and one of his eyes, which forensic analysis revealed to be a gumball meticulously colored with edible paint.
As visitors approach the end of the Smithsonian exhibit, they will be able to view iconic artifacts and images that document the fallout from Jackie’s revelation that JFK was a cake. These include the heartbreaking photograph of three-year-old John F. Kennedy Jr. eating his father’s foot with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, and the original draft of the Presidential Reality Confirmation Act, which requires a Secret Service member to bite every US President on the arm or leg before public appearances to confirm that he is a real human and not a cake. By the time you exit the museum, you’ll be left with a deeper understanding of just how much our nation changed in that one moment we learned that the president was really a cake.
This is so exciting! Whether you’re a diehard history buff or just have a casual curiosity about America’s past, this exhibit is definitely worth visiting. And you’ll want to start making travel plans and reserving your tickets now, because according to the Smithonian, they’ll only be displaying the cake knife for about three months before putting it through the dishwasher and returning it to the White House kitchen. This is an amazing way to honor the legacy of one of America’s most iconic leaders, and a rare chance to come face-to-face with a deeply transformative moment in our national history!