JOHN F. KENNEDY
Politics
Born: May 29, 1917
Brookline, Mass.
Died: November 22, 1963



"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

John F. Kennedy, the son of Joseph P. Kennedy, a financier and later a U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, received a B.S. from Harvard in 1940. After serving in the Navy from 1941-1945 JFK served as a representative in Congress from 1947-1953. He was elected senator in 1952 and reelected in 1958. In 1960, Kennedy ran for the Democratic nomination and defeated Republican Richard M. Nixon in the general election. He became America's 35th and first Roman Catholic President. Space flights and satellite orbiting were greatly developed during the Kennedy years. JFK also backed civil rights. In 1961, when an invasion of anti-Castro Cubans, under the direction of the Central Intelligence Agency, failed to establish itself at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba, the Kennedy administration suffered a severe setback. JFK was assassinated in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963.