John F. Kennedy

Biography

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, known as JFK, was born on May 29, 1917, and served as the 35th president of the United States from January 1961 until he was assassinated in November 1963. He was born to the well-known Kennedy family in Brookline, Massachusetts, and became the youngest president ever elected, at 43, and the first Roman Catholic president. His presidency took place during a tense Cold War period, with his foreign policy largely influenced by the standoff between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, as well as Fidel Castro’s government in Cuba.

Kennedy graduated from Harvard College in 1940 and briefly attended Stanford Graduate School of Business before joining the U.S. Naval Reserve in 1941. During World War II, he commanded PT boats in the Pacific. After his boat, PT-109, was sunk by a Japanese destroyer in August 1943, Kennedy led the survivors to safety, earning the Navy and Marine Corps Medal and the Purple Heart for his bravery. This ordeal left him with long-term physical injuries.

After a short stint in journalism post-war, Kennedy entered politics as a Democrat, representing a working-class Boston district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953. He was then elected to the U.S. Senate, serving as junior senator from Massachusetts until 1960. While in the Senate, he wrote Profiles in Courage, a book about senators who showed moral integrity under pressure, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1957. Kennedy narrowly won the 1960 presidential election against Republican Vice President Richard Nixon, with televised presidential debates boosting his public profile.

As president, Kennedy faced major challenges. In April 1961, he approved the Bay of Pigs Invasion, a failed CIA-backed effort to overthrow Castro's government in Cuba. The following October, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the U.S. and Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war after U.S. spy planes found Soviet missile sites in Cuba. Kennedy's negotiation led to the removal of these missiles. He also increased American involvement in South Vietnam, which later escalated. At home, he proposed key civil rights legislation and pushed for the space program, famously promising in 1962 at Rice University to land a man on the Moon by the decade's end.

On November 22, 1963, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, while riding in a presidential motorcade in Dealey Plaza. He was declared dead at Parkland Memorial Hospital. Lee Harvey Oswald was charged with his murder but was killed two days later before his trial. Kennedy was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963. His death shocked the nation and the world, leading to Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson becoming president.