PROJECT; my gmail's not working, so can't send to kathy. have to post,
John F. Kennedy was born on Tuesday, May 29, 1917 at 3 PM in Brookline, Massachusetts. He died on Sunday, November 22, 1963 at 12:30 PM in Dallas, Texas. John F. Kennedy grew up in a wealthy family. He was the second son of Joseph Patrick Kennedy Sr. and Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald Kennedy. His siblings were Joseph Patrick Kennedy Jr., Rosemary Kennedy, Kathleen Agnes Kennedy-Cavendish, Eunice Mary Kennedy-Shriver, Patricia Helen Kennedy-Lawford, Robert Francis Kennedy, Jean Ann Kennedy-Smith, and Edward Moore Kennedy.
He lived in Brookline for the first 10 years of his life. He attended Edward Devotion School for kindergarten thru third grade, Noble & Greenough (Dexter School) for third and fourth grade. He also attended Riverdale Country School for fifth thru 7th grade. Then in 8th grade he was sent to a Roman Catholic boarding school, Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut. For high school (9th-12th grade) he went to the Choate School with his older brother, Joe Jr., who was two years ahead of him.
He was a member of Scout Troop 2 at Broknxville from 1929-1931. He spent summers at Hyannisport, Massachusetts and other holidays at a winter home in Palm Beach, Florida.
He was a sickly boy. In his eighth grade year in Canterbury, he had to stop because he found out he had appendicitis on April 1931. For his junior year in Choate he had to stop because he had colitis and was hospitalized most of June 1934 at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. He was again hospitalized for 2 months because his doctors thought he had leukemia (cancer of the blood) at the beginning of 1936.
He studied at Harvard, stayed at the Winthrop House, and majored in Political Science. He graduated cum laude from Harvard with a degree in international affairs.
John F. Kennedy was in the U.S. Army during World War II. When the boat was hit by the Japanese, he and his crew were thrown in the water. John F. Kennedy was able to save himself and one crew member for four hours.
Kennedy was a journalist before running for House of Representative. He won and he was re-elected twice. He was an independent thinker and he didn’t always follow the rules.
At his inauguration in 1961, Kennedy pushed his fellow Americans to “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.” Because of that, he established the Peace Corps to promote cultural understanding and to provide support to developing countries. During his presidency, the White House became the cultural center of the nation with the first couple hosting artists, musicians and writers.
Additionally, John & Jacqueline Kennedy’s young children because the main attraction of the White House; they brought a lot of media attention. The Kennedy administration addressed civil rights violence by sending troops to both the University of Mississippi and the University of Alabama to restore order and to stop the cultural difference of the schools. Kennedy’s brother Robert served by his side during this period as U.S. Attorney General.
Kennedy’s administration made space a national priority by setting the goal of having man land on the moon before 1970. During JFK’s presidency, Alan Shepard piloted the first manual space flight in 1961, and John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth the following year.
Early in his presidency, Kennedy attempted to overthrow the communist Castro government in Cuba by sponsoring the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. Later, in the most defining moment of his presidency, the world came to the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Although the crisis was ended with the Soviets withdrawing their nuclear arms, the U.S. started an blockage on Cuba as punishment.
Kennedy talked about the growing Soviet threat in East Germany by planning good military posts in Germany and other places. In response, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev constructed the Berlin Wall to stop the flood of East Germans into West Germany. Kennedy sent U.S. military advisors to South Vietnam in response the corruption in Vietnam, their unequal ness, and the mounting successes by the Viet Cong guerrillas. When the South Vietnamese government was toppled in a violent military coup, Kennedy’s administration quickly recognized the new government.
As his last major actions as president, Kennedy called for the biggest income tax cut in U.S. history in an effort to strengthen the economy and sent the most -reaching civil rights bill to Congress in 1963.
During Jackie’s senior year at George Washington University, one of Jackie’s friends invited her to a dinner party one night. At this party, Jackie was introduced to a congressman from Massachusetts, John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Jackie was not impressed by Jack, as he was called, but by the next April, Jackie and Jack began dating regularly. In May of 1953, when Jackie was in London covering the coronation of Queen Elizabeth (Jackie Bouvier was an inquiring photographer for the New York Times Herald), Jack proposed to Jackie over the phone. She immediately agreed.
On September 12th, 1953, John and Jackie were married at St. Mary’s Church in Newport. Jack Bouvier had planned to give Jackie away, but when he checked into the Viking Hotel, he began drinking. Jackie refused to even let her father attend the wedding. Instead, Hugh Auchincloss gave Jackie away. Jack and Jackie’s wedding reception was held at her stepfather’s house, called Hammersmith Farm. They then left for their honeymoon in Acapulco, Mexico.
After their honeymoon, Jack and Jackie found an estate in McLean, Virginia, and Jackie began to decorate their new home. They both wanted kids, and they even set aside part of their home as a nursery, but Jackie’s first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. Some other problems had also started. After their marriage, they began to realize their differences. Jackie was a very private person, whereas Jack loved to be in the limelight. When Jack took Jackie to parties, Jack would leave Jackie and talk to everyone at the party. Jackie was much quieter, and quite often, she answered questions with just her smile.
Another problem was the hectic lives they led. In November of 1952, Jack had become the Massachusetts senator, and he was quite busy with all his senator duties. Talking about the early years of their marriage, Jackie said, "…we were like gypsies living in and out of a suitcase. It was turbulent. Jack made speeches all over the country and was never home more than two nights at a time." "…I was alone almost every weekend. It was all wrong. Politics was sort of my enemy, and we had no homelife whatsoever."
A larger problem had grown, however, and that problem was Jack’s back. He had injured it playing football in college, and again in World War II. His back pain had greatly increased, and on October eleventh, 1954, Jack entered Cornell University Medical Center in New York to take some tests. Jack’s doctors wanted to find the reason for his chronic back pain, so they decided that he needed to have a spinal operation. He had the operation on October 21, but an infection set in and he went into a coma. However, after a few weeks, Jack came out of the coma. He went home for the holidays, but then the infection flared again and he needed a second operation. The second operation was a success, and Jack decided to write a book while he was in the hospital. Jackie spent every day with Jack and brought him books and other things for his research. She also helped him out by taking dictation and typing his book. The book, called Profiles in Courage, went to the top-seller list and it won the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 1956.
Jackie was pregnant again, but their second baby, in 1956, was a stillborn baby. This was a great disappointment to them both. Another disappointment came on August 3, 1957. Jackie’s father, Jack Bouvier, went into a coma. Jackie and Jack flew in to be with him, but he had died an hour before they arrived. He died from cancer of the liver. Jackie planned her father’s funeral at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. She said, "I want everything to look like a summer garden."
Jack and Jackie sold their large McLean estate and rented a typical townhouse in Georgetown from January to May 1957. Then they bought a redbrick, federal-style townhouse. On November twenty-seventh, 1957, there came an addition to the Kennedy family. Jackie gave birth to Caroline Bouvier Kennedy at New York’s Lying-In Hospital. Now, with Caroline, Jack and Jackie’s marriage greatly improved, and they felt that they couldn’t be happier. Jackie wished her father could have lived to see Caroline, his first grandchild. She knew he would have been so happy to see Caroline.
During 1959 and part of 1960, Jackie accompanied her husband on trips to New Hampshire, West Virginia, Wisconsin, California, Oregon, Ohio, Rhode Island, and New Jersey. Jackie began to really enjoy campaigning. Once, during the presidential primaries, Jackie was in a supermarket and she picked up a microphone and said, "Just keep on with your shopping while I tell you about my husband, John F. Kennedy." She told them all about his career in the Navy and the congress, and ended by saying, "Please vote for him."
All of Jack and Jackie’s hard work paid off in November when Jack won the election. Three weeks later, on November twentieth, 1960, Jackie gave birth to John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr. Jackie was very glad that the campaign was over, and decided to make only the appearances that were absolutely necessary. Jackie said, "The official side of my life takes me away from my children a good deal. If I were to add political duties I would have practically no time with the children, and they’re my first responsibility." It was very challenging for Jackie to raise her children amidst all the publicity they were getting, and Jackie just wanted Caroline and John Jr. to live a normal life. Jackie felt as if she had been "turned into a piece of public property", and she did not want her children to experience that.
On January twentieth, 1960, a freezing cold and snowy day in Washington, D.C., John F. Kennedy became the 35th President of the United States. When Jack became the president, Jackie, thirty-one years old, became the First Lady. She was the third youngest First Lady ever. The two preceding First Ladies were more reserved and grandmotherly, whereas Jackie was young and vivacious. Jackie knew she could never be like them, and she didn’t want to be either.
When Jackie was pregnant again in 1963, she only appeared in public twice, and the rest of the time she spent relaxing on Squaw Island. Weeks before the baby was due, on August 7, 1963, she gave birth to a baby boy, whom they named Patrick. Patrick seemed to be completely normal and healthy, but young Patrick had an infection and he died two days later. This was Jackie’s third child that had died, and she and Jack were heartbroken.
They were married for 10 years until Jack Kennedy’s assassination.
John F. Kennedy was the 35th president. He was assassinated on Friday, November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas at 12:30 PM. In November of 1963, Jack decided to make a trip to Texas to change some minds about racism and civil rights. He asked Jackie if she would like to help him in his cause, and she accepted. Jackie and her husband sat in the back of an open car, as they drove through the streets of Dallas, happily waving to the people crowded on the streets.
Suddenly there was a sharp crack, and Jackie turned to face her husband, who was beginning to slump forward, his hand at his throat. Then there was another gunshot, and the back of Jack’s head was torn away by a bullet. "My God, what are they doing?" Jackie screamed. "My God, they’ve killed Jack; they’ve killed my husband… Jack, Jack!" (They rushed to the nearest hospital, and the doctors tried frantically to save Jack, but the situation was hopeless. JFK had died.) Kennedy was shot by a sniper from Lee Harvey Oswald.
The America publics were witnesses of this situation. Lee Harvey Oswald got murdered two days after he murdered Kennedy. The HSCA resulted that the\re were at least four shots. The first shot was shot through his back and out his throat. The same bullet also hit the governor through his back. The final shot was shot at Kennedy’s head. It made a first-size hole in his head, covering everything abound him in blood and brain tissue. He was rushed to the hospital, but the doctors told them when they arrived he had no chance of surviving because of the head shot. His doctor signed his death certificate.
The vice president Johnson became the president after Kennedy’s death.
On November 25, which was Kennedy’s son’s birthday, his funeral took place. Over 90 representatives from different countries attended his funeral. . The caisson at the front of the funeral procession was followed by a rider less black horse with its stirrups hanging backward from the saddle. The service was at St. Matthew’s Cathedral, and Jack was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. At the burial, fifty fighter jets flew in formation overhead, and Jackie lit the eternal flame which would forever burn in honor of the President. Then, after a twenty-one-gun salute, the taps were played by a lone bugle, and the American flag was folded and given to Jackie. J.F.K. was lowered into the ground.
During the time the FBI and other groups questioned Lee Harvey Oswald for 12 hours, but barely got anything out of him. After a 10 month investigation, a book got published. It said there were only 3 shots and that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the murder of Kennedy.
