TODAY MARKS THE REMEMBRANCE OF THE ASSASSINATION OF JOHN F KENEDY, 35th PRESIDENT OF THE US. Born on May 29, 1917, in Brookline, Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy served in both the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate before becoming the 35th president in 1961. As president, Kennedy faced a number of foreign crises, especially in Cuba and Berlin, but managed to secure such achievements as the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty and the Alliance for Progress. On November 22, 1963, Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas. For time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past, or the present, are certain to miss the future. [stated during an address in the assembly hall at Paulskirche in Frankfurt on June 25, 1963.] – John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born on May 29, 1917, in Brookline, Massachusetts. Both the Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys were wealthy and prominent Irish Catholic Boston families. Kennedys paternal grandfather, P.J. Kennedy, was a wealthy banker and liquor trader, and his maternal grandfather, John E. Fitzgerald, nicknamed Honey Fitz, was a skilled politician who served as a congressman and as the mayor of Boston. Kennedys mother, Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald, was a Boston debutante, and his father, Joseph Kennedy Sr., was a successful banker who made a fortune on the stock market after World War I. Joe Kennedy Sr. went on to a government career as Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission and as an Ambassador to Great Britain. John F. Kennedy, nicknamed Jack, was the second oldest of a group of nine extraordinary siblings. His brothers and sisters include Eunice Kennedy, the founder of the Special Olympics, Robert Kennedy, a U.S. Attorney General and Ted Kennedy, one of the most powerful senators in American history. The Kennedy children remained close-knit and supportive of each other throughout their entire lives. Joseph and Rose Kennedy largely spurned the world of Boston socialites into which they had been born to focus instead on their childrens education. Joe Kennedy in particular obsessed over every detail of his kids lives, a rarity for a father at that time. As a family friend noted, Most fathers in those days simply werent that interested in what their children did. But Joe Kennedy knew what his kids were up to all the time. Joe Sr. had great expectations for his children, and he sought to instill in them a fierce competitive fire and the belief that winning was everything. He entered his children in swimming and sailing competitions and chided them for finishing in anything but first place. John F. Kennedys sister Eunice later recalled, I was twenty-four before I knew I didnt have to win something every day. Jack Kennedy bought into his fathers philosophy that winning was everything. He hates to lose at anything, Eunice said. Thats the only thing Jack gets really emotional about -- when he loses. Despite his fathers constant reprimands, young Kennedy was a poor student and a mischievous boy. He attended a Catholic boys boarding school in Connecticut called Canterbury, where he excelled at English and history, the subjects he enjoyed, but nearly flunked Latin, in which he had no interest. Despite his poor grades, Kennedy continued on to Choate, an elite Connecticut preparatory school.
Posted on: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 05:51:25 +0000
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