John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy (b. 1917) was the 35th President of the United States, serving for only three years until his assassination in November 1963. Born into a prominent political family in Brookline, Massachusetts, Kennedy graduated from Harvard before joining the Navy during World War II.
Known for his charisma and oratory skills, he won the presidency in 1960, becoming the youngest elected president and the first Catholic to hold the office.
Kennedy's presidency was marked by the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Civil Rights Movement and , the Space Race through the Apollo program with the goal of landing the first man on the Moon by 1970.
Homecoming
During his four-day visit to his ancestral home of Ireland beginning on June 26, 1963, Kennedy accepted a grant of armorial bearings from the Chief Herald of Ireland, received honorary degrees from the National University of Ireland and Trinity College Dublin, attended a State Dinner in Dublin, and was conferred with the freedom of the towns and cities of Wexford, Cork, Dublin, Galway, and Limerick. He visited the cottage at Dunganstown, near New Ross, County Wexford, where his ancestors had lived before emigrating to America.
Kennedy was the first foreign leader to address the Houses of the Oireachtas, the Irish parliament. Kennedy later told aides that the trip was the best four days of his life.
The visit was hugely successful both in Ireland and back in the USA with the huge Irish Émigré electorate and resulted in a legacy followed by most US Presidents since.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy Born May 29th 1917 into the prominent wealthy Kennedy family outside Boston in Brookline, Massachusetts to Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., a businessman and politician, and Rose Kennedy (née Fitzgerald), a philanthropist and socialite. His paternal grandfather, P. J. Kennedy, served as a Massachusetts state legislator. Kennedy's maternal grandfather and namesake, John F. Fitzgerald, served as a U.S. Congressman and was elected to two terms as Mayor of Boston. All four of his grandparents were children of Irish immigrants originally leaving Dunganstown, New Ross, County Wexford, Ireland in 1849 to escape the Irish Famine.
As a child, Kennedy had many childhood illnesses and once almost died from scarlet fever. But he grew up to be athletic and competitive, playing football for Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He injured his spine in college and never fully recovered from the injury.
In 1943, a Japanese warship destroyed a boat Kennedy commanded while serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Kennedy swam with the surviving crew members to safety several miles away, carrying one injured sailor by pulling the man’s life jacket strap by his teeth. When asked later how he became a hero, Kennedy replied: "It was easy—they sank my boat." Now a decorated War officer, Kennedy took up his father’s presidential hopes after his older brother, Joseph, died in combat.
Before being elected president, Kennedy represented Massachusetts in the House of Representatives and in the U.S. Senate. He married Jacqueline Bouvier in 1953, soon after he became a senator. In 1960, he was elected president of the United States, defeating Richard Nixon, by the narrowest popular voting margin in history, becoming the youngest person and the first Catholic to ever be elected president.
Kennedy's presidency saw high tensions with communist states in the Cold War. In April 1961, he authorized an attempt to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro in the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion. When U.S. spy planes discovered Soviet missile bases had been deployed in Cuba, the resulting period of tensions, termed the Cuban Missile Crisis, nearly resulted in the outbreak of a nuclear war.
In August 1961, East German troops erected the Berlin Wall to divide the city. Kennedy sent an army convoy to reassure West Berliners and would deliver one of his most famous speeches. Kennedy visited West Berlin in June 1963 and vowed U.S. support to the people there, stating: "Ich bin ein Berliner," or "I am a Berliner" in German. He also increased the number of American military advisers in South Vietnam.
In 1963, Kennedy signed the first nuclear weapons treaty. He presided over the establishment of the Peace Corps, Alliance for Progress with Latin America, and the continuation of the Apollo program with the goal of landing a man on the Moon before 1970. He also supported the civil rights movement, providing federal troops in Alabama and speeding up the drafting of a comprehensive civil rights bill. He was only somewhat successful in passing his New Frontier domestic policies.
Kennedy had only been president for a little less than three years when he was assassinated on November 22, 1963, while touring Dallas, Texas, in a presidential motorcade. Gunman Lee Harvey Oswald was charged with the death but was killed himself before he could be put on trial.
More than a hundred nations sent representatives to Kennedy’s funeral in Washington, D.C.