Tens of thousands of records related to the assassination of President John F Kennedy have been made public for the first time.
Conspiracy theories, new timelines and suspicions of KGB links were among the 80,000 pages of documents, many blurred and damaged by age.
The documents were made public following a day-one executive order by President Donald Trump — honouring a campaign promise to give more transparency about the assassination.
Despite this promise, experts said it was unlikely the documents would provide any earth-shattering revelation about the events of November 22, 1963.
Here's what we know.
Documents include new timeline of Lee Harvey Oswald's movements
Among the documents released was a new timeline detailing the movements of JFK's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.
Oswald, a 24-year-old employee at the Texas School Book Depository, was arrested and charged with the assassination.
President Kennedy was struck in the neck and head as his motorcade passed by the depository on Main Street in Dallas, Texas.
He was rushed to hospital and pronounced dead less than an hour later.
Oswald was shot two days after his arrest by Jack Ruby, a nightclub owner with connections to the criminal underworld — on live television.
The investigation into the assassination, dubbed the Warren Commission, found neither Oswald nor Ruby had been part of a "domestic or foreign" conspiracy.
Oswald's movements became a key focus of their investigation — particularly because he had defected to the Soviet Union in 1959, lived in Minsk and married a Russian woman.
One year before the Kennedy assassination, he moved back to the US.
The new documents released included a timeline of a trip to Mexico made by Oswald just two months before carrying out his assassination plot.
The CIA timeline recorded Oswald arriving at the Cuban Embassy on September 26, 1963, "between 10am and 2pm".
"He was said to look very cold with a hard face and a penetrating, cunning way of looking at you," the document said.
Oswald, according to the document, was attempting to get an in-transit visa to Cuba, with his ultimate goal being to return to Russia.
He was said to have displayed his membership to the Fair Play in Cuba Committee, and the American Communist Party, but was told he needed more documents before the embassy could approve his application.
Cuba at the time was under the dictatorship of Fidel Castro.
The documents went on to show Oswald attempting to expedite his visa over several days, including reaching out to a "revolutionary, pro-Castro Cuban group on the campus of the University of Mexico" for help.
"Maybe he hopes that he can find someone who will say they know him in Cuba," the document said.
"In any case, he seeks some sort of assistance from these Pro-Castroites. He spends the night with them."
Oswald eventually left Mexico without incident, but his interactions with communist groups has long been a basis for conspiracy theorists to speculate on his motives.
The Warren Commission's report does not uphold this view.
Conspiracy theories, 'torture' claims and the KGB
Allegations several intelligence officials had known about Oswald's assassination plan were also among the documents released.
One unknown CIA officer, based in Paris and given the code name Thomas Casasin, said it was his opinion Oswald could have been an undercover KGB operative.
His opinion was based on Oswald's "unusual" defection to the Soviet Union.
It had seemed unusual he was allowed to live in the Soviet Union and marry a Soviet citizen, according to Casasin.
"Casasin said he believes it is inconceivable that Oswald would have been any type of operative of the CIA," the memo said.
"However, he also gave his opinion that the nature of KGB operations made it conceivable that Oswald could have been a "lay-low" Soviet operative."
Another confidential document, sent by a man named Sergyj Czornonoh to the US British Ambassador, claimed intelligence services had been warned about Oswald's intentions two months before the assassination took place.
Czornonoh claimed he was pulled aside during an immigration check at a London Airport due to not having a visa before being interrogated about the USSR.
"I said I have heard that one American defector (Mr Lee Harvey Oswald) to Russia and he returned to United States of America," he wrote.
"This man he preparing to kill to assassinate President John F Kennedy.
"Police officer asked me 'do you know his name', I said his name start on 'O' and his name was published one time in newspaper in Washington Post."
Mr Czornonoh would continue to write to the embassy, and spoke about the FBI using anaesthesia gas to "freeze him and torture him" after he provided the information.
The Warren Commission found no evidence to support either claim.
Castro, world leaders' fears of 'instability' after JFK assassination
One other released document was a memo from a high-level diplomat to the US, following Kennedy's assassination and Lyndon B Johnson stepping into the role of US president.
It detailed Castro's reaction to the shooting.
"Fidel Castro was very upset over the change in the United States administration brought about by President Kennedy's assassination," it reads.
"The present policy of the Cuban government, on orders from Castro, is not to attack President Johnson in public, or do anything to irritate him."
Castro, according to the documents, wanted to "wait and see" what President Johnson said and did about Cuba before potentially taking action.
Other countries also reacted to Kennedy's shooting through various confidential memos sent back and forth.
Documents from Yugoslavian, Romanian and Czech officials detailed "hope [the assassination] would not change the international atmosphere".
No 'great revelations' or warning for surviving Kennedys
Experts did not expect any major bombshells to appear among the tens of thousands of pages.
Most relevant agencies already turned over the bulk of their documents to the National Archives in 1988, according to James Johnston.
Mr Johnston, now an author, was staff member of a congressional committee tasked with investigating the CIA in 1975.
"If it was going to embarrass the agency or tell a different story, they wouldn't have turned them over to the National Archives in the first place," he told USA Today.
"And if they were withholding them before, I'm guessing they would continue to withhold them."
Historian Alice L George said government records were unlikely to quell the public's "sense that there must be important evidence hidden away".
"I think there may continue to be more releases [but] I seriously doubt that will include great revelations," she told Reuters.
The files released contained a trove of information around the United States and its relationship with countries including Vietnam, Venezuela and Cuba as communism continued to spread.
The majority of the documents focused mainly on the broader political climate surrounding the assassination and highlight the instability Kennedy's death had on international relations.
Members of the Kennedy family have also spoken out against the release of the documents.
Jack Schlossberg, JFK's grandson and son of former US ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy, slammed the executive order signed by the current president in January.
"The truth is a lot sadder than the myth," Mr Schlossberg said.
He accused Mr Trump of using the late former president as "a political prop, when he's not here to punch back".
"There's nothing heroic about [releasing the documents]," he said.
[schlossberg tweet]Mr Schlossberg also said the family had not been given "a heads up" by the Trump administration prior to the release on Tuesday local time.
Robert F Kennedy, JFK's nephew and Mr Trump's secretary of health and human services, declined to comment when contacted by media.
More files on Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy still to come
Lawyers who handle sensitive national security matters were ordered to urgently review records from the assassination in the scramble to comply with Mr Trump's order, according to an email sent Monday evening local time and seen by Reuters.
Mr Trump told reporters during a visit to the Kennedy Center this week they had "a tremendous amount of paper".
"You've got a lot of reading," he said.
"People have been waiting for decades for this."
Mr Trump's director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, hailed the document release as part of a promise for "maximum transparency".
She added it was a "commitment to rebuild the trust of the American people in the Intelligence Community and federal agencies".
More documents are being digitised and are expected to be posted online in coming days, according to a statement released by the National Archives.
Documents which have not been scanned were available in person at the archives at College Park, Maryland.
It added some information could still be withheld for grand jury secrecy or because of prohibitions on releasing tax return information.
The president has also promised to release more documents on the assassinations of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr and Senator Robert Kennedy, both of whom were killed in 1968.
Mr Trump has allowed more time to plan for those releases.
ABC/Reuters
