John F. Kennedy
1917–1963 · Thirty-fifth president of the United States, assassinated in Dallas in 1963.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born in 1917 in Brookline, Massachusetts, the second of nine children of Joseph P. Kennedy, a businessman and later ambassador to Britain, and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. He graduated from Harvard in 1940. In the Second World War he commanded a patrol torpedo boat, PT-109, in the Pacific; when it was sunk by a Japanese destroyer in 1943 he led the survivors to safety. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1946 and to the Senate in 1952, and in 1953 married Jacqueline Bouvier. His book Profiles in Courage won a Pulitzer Prize. In 1960 he defeated Richard Nixon to become, at 43, the youngest person elected president and the first Roman Catholic. His inaugural address in 1961 asked Americans to 'ask what you can do for your country'. His presidency included the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, the founding of the Peace Corps, and the goal of landing a man on the Moon. He was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963.
John F. Kennedy is also an author in the library: author page and works.
Faith: A Roman Catholic, the first Catholic elected U.S. president. Source: Wikipedia
Key dates
- 1917 Born in Brookline, Massachusetts
- 1943 PT-109 sunk in the Pacific
- 1952 Elected to the Senate
- 1960 Elected president
- 1961 Inaugural address
- 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis
- 1963 Assassinated in Dallas
Fun facts
- He was a Boy Scout as a child. (Source: John F. Kennedy (Wikipedia))
Record-breaker
Firsts and records, worded as the sources give them ("first known", "at the time").
- He was the youngest person ever elected U.S. president, at 43, and the first Roman Catholic president. (Source: John F. Kennedy (Wikipedia))
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Grades 9–12
- Inaugural Address · In the library
More lives
Dwight D. Eisenhower · Martin Luther King Jr. · Nelson Mandela · Ronald Reagan