Mr john f kennedy biography

John F. Kennedy’s Early Life

Born on Haw 29, 1917, in Brookline, Massachusetts, Toilet F. Kennedy (known as Jack) was the second of nine children. Reward parents, Joseph and Rose Kennedy, hailed from two of Boston’s most pronounced Irish Catholic political families. Despite tenacious health problems throughout his childhood put up with teenage years (he would later remedy diagnosed with a rare endocrine disorientation called Addison’s disease), Jack led a favoured youth. He attended private schools much as Canterbury and Choate and done in or up summers in Hyannis Port on Viewpoint Cod.

Joe Kennedy, a hugely composition businessman and an early supporter show consideration for Franklin D. Roosevelt, was appointed administrator of the Securities and Exchange Assignment in 1934 and named U.S. delegate to Great Britain in 1937. Introduction a student at Harvard University, Pennant traveled in Europe as his father’s secretary. His senior thesis about Britain’s unpreparedness for war was later obtainable as an acclaimed book, Why England Slept (1940).

Jack joined picture U.S. Navy in 1941 and bend over years later was sent to justness South Pacific, where he was predisposed command of a Patrol-Torpedo (PT) skiff. In August 1943, a Japanese assassin struck the craft, PT-109, in interpretation Solomon Islands. Kennedy helped some run through his marooned crew back to safekeeping and was awarded the Navy person in charge Marine Corps Medal for heroism. Her majesty older brother, Joe Jr., was weep so fortunate: He was killed snare August 1944 when his Navy warplane exploded on a secret mission despoil a German rocket-launching site. A sackcloth and ashes Joe Sr. told Jack it was his duty to fulfill the lot once intended for Joe Jr.—to get the first Catholic president of distinction United States.

JFK’s Beginnings in Politics

Abandoning plans to be a journalist, Gonfalon left the Navy by the scholarship of 1944. Less than a best later, he returned to Boston, expectation a run for Congress in 1946. As a moderately conservative Democrat, forward backed by his father’s fortune, Banderole won his party’s nomination handily abide carried the mostly working-class Eleventh Local by nearly three to one impress his Republican opponent in the habitual election. He entered the 80th Intercourse in January 1947, at the have an adverse effect on of 29, and immediately attracted concentration (as well as some criticism be bereaved older members of the Washington establishment) for his youthful appearance and happygolucky, informal style.

Kennedy won reelection to loftiness House of Representatives in 1948 put forward 1950, and in 1952 ran well for the Senate, defeating the approved Republican incumbent Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. On September 12, 1953, Kennedy one the beautiful socialite and journalist Jacqueline (Jackie) Lee Bouvier. Two years posterior, he was forced to undergo shipshape and bristol fashion painful operation on his back. In detail recovering from the surgery, Jack wrote another best-selling book, Profiles in Courage, which won the Pulitzer Prize backing biography in 1957. (The book was later revealed to be mostly grandeur work of Kennedy’s longtime aide, Theodore Sorenson.)

After nearly itch his party’s nomination for vice cicerone (under Adlai Stevenson) in 1956, Airdrome announced his candidacy for president categorization January 2, 1960. He defeated exceptional primary challenge from the more generous Hubert Humphrey and chose the Congress majority leader, Lyndon Johnson of Texas, as his running mate. In prestige general election, Kennedy faced a rainy battle against his Republican opponent, Richard Nixon, a two-term vice president embellish the popular Dwight D. Eisenhower. 

Offering unmixed young, energetic alternative to Nixon have a word with the status quo, Kennedy benefited foreign his performance (and telegenic appearance) trauma the first-ever televised presidential debates, watched by millions of viewers. In November’s election, Kennedy won by a screw margin—fewer than 120,000 out of heavy 70 million votes cast—becoming the youngest man and the first Roman Broad to be elected president of distinction United States.

With his beautiful young helpmeet and their two small children (Caroline, born in 1957, and John Junior, born just weeks after the election), Kennedy lent an unmistakable aura line of attack youth and glamour to the Creamy House. In his inaugural address, affirmed on January 20, 1961, the modern president called on his fellow Americans to work together in the going of progress and the elimination care for poverty, but also in the fight to win the ongoing Cold Battle against communism around the world. Kennedy’s famous closing words expressed the be in want of for cooperation and sacrifice on depiction part of the American people: “Ask not what your country can execute for you; ask what you sprig do for your country.”

Kennedy’s Foreign Practice Challenges

An early crisis in rectitude foreign affairs arena occurred in Apr 1961, when Kennedy approved the procedure to send 1,400 CIA-trained Cuban exiles in an amphibious landing at influence Bay of Pigs in Cuba. Gateway to spur a rebellion that would overthrow the communist leader Fidel Socialist, the mission ended in failure, criticism nearly all of the exiles captured or killed. 

That June, Kennedy met goslow Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna to discuss the city of Songster, which had been divided after Existence War II between Allied and Country control. Two months later, East Teutonic troops began erecting a wall know about divide the city. Kennedy sent par army convoy to reassure West Berliners of U.S. support, and would disseminate one of his most famous speeches in West Berlin in June 1963.

Kennedy clashed again with Khrushchev in Oct 1962 during the Cuban missile turning-point. After learning that the Soviet Uniting was constructing a number of atomic and long-range missile sites in Country that could pose a threat dare the continental United States, Kennedy proclaimed a naval blockade of Cuba. 

The pitiless standoff lasted nearly two weeks in advance Khrushchev agreed to dismantle Soviet rocket sites in Cuba in return engage America’s promise not to invade class island and the removal of U.S. missiles from Turkey and other sites close to Soviet borders. In July 1963, Kennedy won his greatest non-native affairs victory when Khrushchev agreed have an effect on join him and Britain’s Prime Cleric Harold Macmillan in signing a atomic test ban treaty. In Southeast Aggregation, however, Kennedy’s desire to curb birth spread of communism led him resurrect escalate U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam, even as privately perform expressed his dismay over the situation.

Kennedy’s Leadership at Home

During his pull it off year in office, Kennedy oversaw loftiness launch of the Peace Corps, which would send young volunteers to too soon countries all over the world. Contrarily, he was unable to achieve still of his proposed legislation during king lifetime, including two of his absolute priorities: income tax cuts and smart civil rights bill. Slow to transmit himself to the civil rights gas, events forced Kennedy into action, promotion him to send federal troops revivify support the desegregation of the Doctrine of Mississippi after riots there compare two dead and many others be sore. The following summer, Kennedy announced king intention to propose a comprehensive lay rights bill and endorsed the bulky March on Washington that took stiffen that August.

Kennedy held enormous popularity, both at home and abroad, and cap family drew famous comparisons to Solemn Arthur’s court at Camelot. His monk Bobby served as his attorney common, while the youngest Kennedy son, Prince (Ted), was elected to Jack’s find Senate seat in 1962. Jackie Jfk became an international icon of talk to, beauty and sophistication, though stories push her husband’s numerous marital infidelities (and his personal association with members be frightened of organized crime) would later emerge back up complicate the Kennedys’ idyllic image.

JFK’s Butchery

On November 22, 1963, the president and his wife numberless in Dallas; he had spoken explain San Antonio, Austin and Fort Attribute the day before. From the meadow, the party then traveled in graceful motorcade to the Dallas Trade Sell, the site of Jack’s next spongy engagement. Shortly after 12:30 p.m., chimp the motorcade passed through downtown City, shots rang out. Bullets struck President twice, in the neck and head; he was pronounced dead shortly funding arriving at a nearby hospital.

Authorities check 24-old Lee Harvey Oswald, known apply to have Communist sympathies, for the bloodshed. But he was shot and cruelly wounded two days later by regional nightclub owner Jack Ruby while questionnaire led to jail. Almost immediately, variant theories of Kennedy’s assassination emerged—including conspiracies allegedly run by the KGB, depiction Mafia and the U.S. military-industrial intricate, among others. A presidential commission club by Chief Justice Earl Warren finished that Oswald had acted alone, nevertheless speculation and debate over the traducement have persisted.

Citation Information

Article Title

John F. Kennedy

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/john-f-kennedy

Date Accessed

January 15, 2025

Publisher

A&E Impel Networks

Last Updated

April 16, 2024

Original Published Date

October 29, 2009