On this day in 1967 Jack Ruby died from Lung Cancer just a few years after he successfully appealed a death sentence after he fatally shot Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963. Oswald at the time was in police custody after being charged with the murder of John F. Kennedy.

On this day in 1967, Jack Ruby — the Dallas nightclub owner whose name became permanently etched into one of the most turbulent chapters in American history — died from lung cancer at Parkland Memorial Hospital, the very same hospital where President John F. Kennedy had been pronounced dead just over three years earlier. He was 55 years old, and with him went secrets that many believe were never fully uncovered.

Born Jacob Leon Rubenstein in Chicago in 1911, Ruby grew up on the rough streets of the city's West Side, a neighbourhood that served as something of a breeding ground for organised crime figures during the Prohibition era. As a young man, Ruby ran in circles that brushed uncomfortably close to the mob, and investigators would later establish that he had connections to figures tied to the Chicago Outfit — the criminal organisation that had flourished under Al Capone and later evolved under the stewardship of Sam Giancana. Ruby's associates over the years included a number of individuals with documented ties to organised crime, and his ownership of Dallas strip clubs placed him firmly within a world where the lines between legitimate business and criminal enterprise were routinely blurred.

When Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested following the assassination of President Kennedy on 22nd November 1963, the world watched in disbelief as Ruby stepped forward two days later and shot Oswald dead in the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters — on live television, in front of dozens of law enforcement officers. The act robbed investigators of the opportunity to question the only man charged with killing the President, and conspiracy theorists have never stopped asking why Ruby did it. Ruby himself claimed he acted out of grief for Kennedy and a desire to spare Jackie Kennedy the ordeal of a trial, but few found that explanation entirely satisfying.

Ruby was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1964, but successfully appealed the conviction in 1966 on the grounds that he had not received a fair trial. Before a retrial could take place, he was diagnosed with cancer, and his health deteriorated rapidly. In December 1966, he was admitted to hospital and died just weeks later on 3rd January 1967.

The Warren Commission concluded that Ruby acted alone and without conspiracy, though the House Select Committee on Assassinations later suggested organised crime figures may have had motives to silence Oswald. Jack Ruby remains one of the most debated and mysterious figures of the twentieth century, his true motivations as murky in death as they ever were in life.