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1963 BCE
JOHN F. KENNEDY
Kennedy sent an army convoy to reassure West Berliners of U.S. support, and would deliver one of his most famous speeches in West Berlin in June 1963. -
1962 BCE
KENNEDY’S LEADERSHIP AT HOME
During his first year in office, Kennedy oversaw the launch of the Peace Corps, which would send young volunteers to underdeveloped countries all over the world. Otherwise, he was unable to achieve much of his proposed legislation during his lifetime, including two of his biggest priorities: income tax cuts and a civil rights bill. Kennedy was slow to commit himself to the civil rights cause, but was eventually forced into action, sending federal troops to support -
1960 BCE
JOHN F. KENNEDY
He defeated a primary challenge from the more liberal Hubert Humphrey and chose the Senate majority leader, Lyndon Johnson of Texas, as his running mate. In the general election, Kennedy faced a difficult battle against his Republican opponent, Richard Nixon, a two-term vice president under the popular Dwight D. Eisenhower. -
1957 BCE
JOHN F. KENNEDY
With his beautiful young wife and their two small children (Caroline, born in 1957, and John Jr., born just weeks after the election), Kennedy lent an unmistakable aura of youth and glamour to the White House. -
1956 BCE
KENNEDY’S ROAD TO PRESIDENCY
After nearly earning his party’s nomination for vice president (under Adlai Stevenson) in 1956, Kennedy announced his candidacy for president on January 2, 1960. He defeated a primary challenge from the more liberal Hubert Humphrey and chose the Senate majority leader, Lyndon Johnson of Texas, as his running mate. -
1952 BCE
KENNEDY’S
In 1952, seeking greater influence and a larger platform, Kennedy challenged Republican incumbent Henry Cabot Lodge for his seat in the U.S. Senate. Once again backed by his father's vast financial resources, Kennedy hired his younger brother Robert as his campaign manager. Robert Kennedy put together what one journalist called "the most methodical, the most scientific, the most thoroughly detailed, the most disciplined and smoothly working state-wide campaign in Massachusetts history -
1940 BCE
JOHN F. KENNEDY
Kennedy won reelection to the House of Representatives in 1948 and 1950, and in 1952 ran successfully for the Senate, defeating the popular Republican incumbent Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. -
KENNEDY’S FOREIGN POLICY CHALLENGES
Born on May 29, 1917, in Brookline, Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy (known as Jack) was the second of nine children. His parents, Joseph and Rose Kennedy, were members of two of Boston’s most prominent Irish Catholic political families. Despite persistent health problems throughout his childhood and teenage years (he would later be diagnosed with a rare endocrine disorder called Addison’s disease), Jack led a privileged youth, attending private schools such as Canterbury -
JOHN F. KENNEDY’S EARLY LIFE
Jack joined the U.S. Navy in 1941 and two years later was sent to the South Pacific, where he was given command of a Patrol-Torpedo (PT) boat. -
JFK’S BEGINNINGS IN POLITICS
n August 1943, a Japanese destroyer struck the craft, PT-109, in the Solomon Islands. Kennedy helped some of his marooned crew back to safety, and was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for heroism. -
JOHN F. KENNEDY
His older brother, Joe Jr., was not so fortunate: He was killed in August 1944 when his Navy airplane exploded on a secret mission against a German rocket-launching site. -
JOHN F. KENNEDY
On September 12, 1953, Kennedy married the beautiful socialite and journalist Jacqueline (Jackie) Lee Bouvier. Two years later, he was forced to undergo a painful operation on his back. While recovering from the surgery, Jack wrote another best-selling book, “ -
JOHN F. KENNEDY
Profiles in Courage,” which won the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 1957. (The book was later revealed to be mostly the work of Kennedy’s longtime aide, Theodore Sorenson.) -
JOHN F. KENNEDY
After nearly earning his party’s nomination for vice president (under Adlai Stevenson) in 1956, Kennedy announced his candidacy for president on January 2, 1960. -
JOHN F. KENNEDY
In November’s election, Kennedy won by a narrow margin–less than 120,000 out of some 70 million votes cast–becoming the youngest man and the first Roman Catholic to be elected president of the United States. -
JOHN F. KENNEDY
An early crisis in the foreign affairs arena occurred in April 1961, when Kennedy approved the plan to send 1,400 CIA-trained Cuban exiles in an amphibious landing at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba. -
Monroe
On March 24, 1962, JFK and Ms. Monroe were both guests at Bing Crosby’s house in Palm Springs. JFK had arranged the rendezvous through the actor Peter Lawford, who was married to JFK's sister Pat at the time. According to Marilyn Monroe's biographer Donald Spoto, -
happy birthday
The next and last time Marilyn Monroe crossed paths with JFK was at Kennedy's 45th birthday party at Madison Square Garden. The knowledge that Monroe and JFK had already had a one-night stand by this point makes the sensuality she brought to her performance of Happy Birthday, Mr. President even more palpable. -
JOHN F. KENNEDY
Kennedy clashed again with Khrushchev in October 1962 during the Cuban missile crisis. After learning that the Soviet Union was constructing a number of nuclear and long-range missile sites in Cuba that could pose a threat to the continental United States, Kennedy announced a naval blockade of Cuba. -
JFK’S ASSASSINATION
On November 22, 1963, the president and his wife landed in Dallas; he had spoken in San Antonio, Austin and Fort Worth the day before. From the airfield, the party then traveled in a motorcade to the Dallas Trade Mart, the site of Jack’s next speaking engagement. Shortly after 12:30 p.m., as the motorcade was passing through downtown Dallas, shots rang out; Kennedy was struck twice, in the neck and head, and was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at a nearby hospital. -
killer
Twenty-four-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald, known to have Communist sympathies, was arrested for the killing but was shot and fatally wounded two days later by local nightclub owner Jack Ruby while being led to jail. Almost immediately, alternative theories of Kennedy’s assassination emerged–including conspiracies run by the KGB, the Mafia and the U.S. military-industrial complex, among others. A presidential commission led by Chief Justice Earl Warren concluded that Oswald had acted alone
