John F. Kennedy

Among his many honors as President of the United States of America, John Fitzgerald Kennedy remains the youngest man ever elected to the office of Chief Executive, and the youngest man to die while still fulfilling his duties. Serving as America's President, John F. Kennedy held his office for 1000 days, dying November 22nd, 1963, assassinated at the age of 46.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born on May 29th, 1917 in Brookline, Massachusetts, the second son of nine children of the wealthy Roman Catholic Kennedy family. Joseph Patrick Kennedy, Kennedy's father, was a self-improving multi-millionaire who had built a financial empire through projects in banking, the stock market, ship building and the film industry and liquor distribution. Kennedy's mother, Rose Fitzgerald was of Irish ancestry like her husband, and daughter of former Boston mayor John F. Fitzgerald. As family patriarch, Joseph Kennedy pushed his children to achieve and often encouraged them to compete with one another. John Kennedy's childhood was one spent at exclusive private schools, including Canterbury School of New Milford, Connecticut and preparatory school at Choate Hall in Wallingford, Connecticut.

While Joseph Kennedy served as the U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain, John Kennedy, then eighteen years of age, spent a year at the London School of Economics. John returned to America to attend Princeton University, but left during his freshman term due to a case of severe jaundice. His illness is believed to have been caused by a condition the Kennedy family kept secret throughout his life. John Kennedy was of the 1 in 100,000 people afflicted with Addison's disease, a rare but serious disorder which affects the endocrine system.

Kennedy entered Harvard in 1936, where he was a cum laude graduate of the class in 1940. His senior thesis, on England's military lack of preparation had been based on his experiences in London and a 6-month service as his father's (while he was the ambassador) secretary. That very thesis was later expanded into his best selling book, While England Slept.

As a youth, John F. Kennedy never sought a vocation in politics, but planned to become a journalist. Joseph Kennedy, as head of the nation's Securities and Exchange Commission and a U.S. Ambassador, coached his eldest son, Joe, to move on and increase his family's political tradition. Joe and John Kennedy both enlisted in the armed forces during World War II, John joining the U.S. Navy in 1941.

In 1943, while appointed to the South Pacific as the commander of a torpedo boat, John Kennedy was nearly killed in combat when his PT 109 ship was rammed and sunk by an enemy ship. The 26-year-old Kennedy, though badly wounded, was able to bring his existing crew through miles of harsh waters to shelter, an act which earned him the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps Medal for Heroism. Kennedy's injuries seriously aggravated an old back injury, and although what proved to be chronic pain, he returned to active duty and served until 1945. Kennedy's older brother Joe, the successor apparent to the Kennedy's political tradition, did not endure the war.

Once stateside, John Kennedy was able to momentarily chase a journalism career as a reporter for the Hearst Newspapers, but was steered into politics by Joseph Kennedy. In 1947, John F. Kennedy was elected the Democratic Congressional Representative for Boston, Massachusetts, and in 1953 became a U.S. Senator. That same year, on September 12th, 1953 Kennedy married Jacqueline Bouvier. John and Jackie Kennedy had three children: Caroline, John Jr., and a second son, Patrick, who died shortly after birth in 1963.

Kennedy had not function long as a husband or U.S. Senator when his constant back problems needed surgery, the second of three major orthopedic actions he would endure in his life. Kennedy put his recovery time to good use, writing the Pulitzer Prize winning account, Profiles in Courage, a history of the lives of eight American Senators. Kennedy's surgeries proved ineffective in easing his chronic and nearly crippling back pain, but he ran for Vice President in 1956, only just missing the Democratic nomination.

In 1960, now a young, friendly family man, highly literate, a war hero and Pulitzer Prize winner, Kennedy had the Democratic Party backing for President and took part in the first televised debate of Presidential candidate against the Republican candidate, Richard M. Nixon. Political analysts even 40 years later maintain that Kennedy's on-camera appeal during the debate sealed his narrow victory at the polls. In November 1960, John F. Kennedy, 43 years old, became the 35th President of the United States of America, the youngest man voted into the Chief Executive office, and the first Roman Catholic.

John F. Kennedy's inspiring inaugural speech, which included the famous quote, "Ask not what your country