Orlando Fernandez took this photo for the "New York World Telegram."

People across the country gathered information instantly from the Internet yesterday about the shooting of Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords. But in the pre-wired age, on November 22, 1963, concerned citizens of another tragedy, the assassination of President Kennedy, learned details by flocking to Morel’s Electronics shop in New York City, on Greenwich and Dey Streets. An even earlier generation had learned about the sinking of the Titanic by listening to a wireless transmission at Wanamaker’s department store.