On May 29th, 1917, the world witnessed a significant change, particularly for Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, as their son John F. Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts.
Shortly after his birth, the Kennedy family relocated to Riverdale, N.Y. in September. Unfortunately, Riverdale proved less eventful, as in October 1929, the stock market crashed, triggering the Great Depression.
However, a few years later, in the fall of 1931, John enrolled in Choate, a private, co-educational, college-preparatory boarding school in Wallingford, Connecticut. Founded in 1890, Choate adopted its present name in 1971 with the merger of The Choate School for boys and Rosemary Hall for girls. It is a member of the Eight Schools Association and the Ten Schools Admissions Organization.
John graduated from Choate in June 1935, ranking 64th in a class of 112. Subsequently, he entered Princeton but had to withdraw due to illness. The following year, he attended Harvard University, graduating in 1940. In 1937, his father was appointed ambassador to Great Britain, and from winter 1938 to summer 1939, John toured Europe.
In September 1939, World War II erupted in Europe.
In 1940, John wrote his senior thesis on English foreign policy before World War II, and in July of that year, it was published as "Why England Slept." The subsequent summer, he joined the U.S. armed forces. On December 7th, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, compelling the U.S. to enter World War II. From 1942-43, John served and later commanded a Motor Torpedo Boat, or ‘PT Boat,’ in the South Pacific.
On August 2nd, 1943, his boat was rammed by a Japanese destroyer. Under his leadership, most of the crew was eventually rescued, earning him the Purple Heart for his heroics. The following spring, he entered Boston’s Chelsea Naval Hospital with a lower back condition. A couple of months later, on August 12th, Joseph Kennedy Jr. was killed while flying a mission over Europe. Just a few months after that, on March 1st, 1945, John was discharged from the Navy.
However, he utilized this period to venture into politics. On June 17th, 1946, John F. Kennedy secured victory in the Democratic primary for Massachusetts’ eleventh congressional district. A mere couple of months later, in November, he emerged triumphant in the House of Representatives election.
In the fall of 1948, Kennedy clinched a second term in the House. While on a trip to England, he received the diagnosis of Addison’s disease, a relatively uncommon condition where the body fails to produce sufficient hormones, leading to inadequate cortisol and often insufficient aldosterone production.
The Korean War unfolded from 1950 to 1953. In February 1950, Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy claimed to possess a list of communists within the State Department, marking the beginning of the McCarthy era.
In November of the same year, JFK secured a third term in the House. Two years later, he triumphed over Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. in the United States Senate election. Meanwhile, Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon defeated Adlai Stevenson in the presidential election.
On September 12th, 1953, John F. Kennedy married Jacqueline Bouvier. In December 1954, Joseph McCarthy was censured by the U.S. Senate, with JFK abstaining from the voting process.
Between 1955 and 1956, Kennedy "wrote" Profiles in Courage, a historical account of heroic American senators. However, it is worth noting that the majority of the work was crafted by his speechwriter, Theodore Sorensen.
During the summer of 1956, at the Democratic National Convention, Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver narrowly bested JFK for Adlai Stevenson’s running mate. In November of the same year, Eisenhower triumphed over Stevenson for re-election.
In 1957, Profiles in Courage received the Pulitzer Prize. On November 27th, 1957, Caroline Bouvier Kennedy, JFK’s daughter, was born. The subsequent year, he comfortably secured re-election to the Senate.
Nevertheless, the turning point was imminent. On July 15th, 1960, in Los Angeles, Kennedy accepted the Democratic Party Nomination for President. On November 8th, 1960, he defeated Vice President Nixon with 56.4% of the Electoral College and 49.7% of the popular vote, marking his election day. Earlier in July of that year, he secured the Democratic presidential nomination, selecting Lyndon Johnson as his running mate. Officially, on November 8th, he emerged victorious, becoming the President.
Less than 20 days after being swon in as President the birth of John F. Kennedy, Jr. occurred. In January 1961, John F. Kennedy was sworn in as the President of the United States. Just a couple of months later, in March, he announced the establishment of the Peace Corps. However, in April, a U.S.-backed invasion of Cuba ended in disaster at the Bay of Pigs. In June, JFK and Nikita Khrushchev held a summit in Vienna, and in August, the U.S.A. and Latin American nations joined in the "Alliance for Progress."
In March 1962, JFK forced the steel industry to eliminate a proposed price increase. Soon after, on October 16th, 1962, the U.S. obtained photos of Soviet missile emplacements in Cuba, leading to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Five days later, on October 22nd, he announced the naval quarantine of Cuba, and on the 28th, the Soviet Union agreed to remove its missiles from Cuba.
The following summer, in June 1962, JFK called the civil rights struggle a "moral crisis" for America. On August 5th, the U.S. and the Soviet Union agreed to a nuclear test-ban treaty.
However, everything took a grim turn in November. In early November 1963, a U.S.-backed coup overthrew the government of South Vietnam, replacing it with a military dictatorship.
On the 22nd of November, JFK's life was tragically cut short. While riding through the streets of Dallas, Texas, he was assassinated. Kennedy was in the vehicle with his wife Jacqueline, Texas Governor John Connally, and Connally's wife Nellie when he was fatally shot from the nearby Texas School Book Depository by Lee Harvey Oswald, a former U.S. Marine. The motorcade rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where Kennedy was pronounced dead about 30 minutes after the shooting. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as president later that day.
Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin, was a complex figure. Placed in juvenile detention at 12, he was assessed as "emotionally disturbed." After joining the Marines and facing court-martials, Oswald defected to the Soviet Union in 1959. He returned to the U.S. in 1962 and settled in Dallas, where he shot and killed Kennedy on November 22, 1963, before being fatally shot by Jack Ruby two days later.
The question lingers: Did JFK get the justice he deserved, or was his presidency controversial enough to warrant such a tragic end?
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