John F. Kennedy
- 35th President (1961-1963)
Background
- Born in Brookline, Massachusetts, on May 29, 1917
- At the age of 3 he had scarlet fever
- From childhood to teenage years he had diphtheria, appendicitis, whooping cough, jaundice, asthmas, and pneumonia
- Wrote a book
- Graduated from Harvard in 1940
- Served in WWII
- Was in the Navy
- When his PT boat was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer in 1943, he led his crew to safety despite his injuries
- When he got back from war he was Democratic Congressman from Boston
- Advanced to Senate in 1953
- Married Jacqueline Bouvier on September 12, 1953
- At age 43, he was the youngest to have been elected to the office
- Second youngest president (after Theodore Roosevelt)
- The first person in the 20th century to serve as president
- Kennedy has been the only Roman Catholic president and the only president to have won a Pulitzer Prize
Election
- Election of JFK and Richard Nixon
- JFK had won 23 states and Nixon with 36
- He won with 303 to 219 electoral votes
- He promised he would “get America moving again”
- Nixon promised he would continue “Peace and prosperity”
- People liked him a lot, he was young and fresh
New Frontier
- Domestic Program promising federal funding for education, medical care for the elderly, economic aid to rural regions
- Government intervention to hald the recession of the time
- Abolished the federal death penalty
- Signed executive orders prohibiting racial discrimination and laid the groundwork for the Civil Rights Act of 1964
- Initiated Project Apollo as the first expedition to the moon
- Asked congress to create the Peace Corps
- Began American involvement in Vietnam as a means of staunching communist expansion in Southeast Asia
Assassination
- Kennedy was shot at 12:29 pm by Lee Harvey Oswald
- Brought to Parkman Memorial Hospital
- Governor Connally and James Tague were both hit by the bullet
- An AP poll that was taken in 2013 showed that more than 59% of people thought that there was more than one person involved in the President’s murder.
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