John F Kennedy

In 1956 Kennedy almost gained the Democratic nomination for Vice President, and four years later was a first-ballot nominee for President. Millions watched his television debates with the Republican candidate, Richard M. Nixon. Winning by a narrow margin in the popular vote, Kennedy became the first Roman Catholic President. (brother of Edward M. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy, grandson of John Francis Fitzgerald, and uncle of Joseph Patrick Kennedy II and Patrick J. Kennedy), a Representative and a Senator from Massachusetts and 35th President of the United States; born in Brookline, Norfolk County, Mass., May 29, 1917; attended the public and private schools of Brookline, Mass., Choate School, Wallingford, Conn., the London School of Economics at London, England, and Princeton University; graduated from Harvard University in 1940; attended Stanford University School of Business; during the Second World War served as a lieutenant in the United States Navy 1941-1945; PT boat commander in the South Pacific; author and newspaper correspondent; elected as a Democrat to the Eightieth, Eighty-first, and Eighty-second Congresses (January 3, 1947-January 3, 1953); did not seek renomination in 1952; elected to the United States Senate in 1952; reelected in 1958 and served from January 3, 1953 to December 22, 1960, when he resigned to become President of the United States; chairman, Special Committee on the Senate Reception Room (Eighty-fourth and Eighty-fifth Congresses); unsuccessfully sought the Democratic vice presidential nomination in 1956; elected thirty-fifth President of the United States in 1960, and was inaugurated on January 20, 1961; died in Dallas, Tex., November 22, 1963, from the effects of an assassin’s bullet; remains returned to Washington, D.C.; lay in state in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, November 24-25, 1963; interment in Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Va.; posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on December 6, 1993.