Kennedy's Last Days: The Assassination That Defined a Generation (35 page)
Read Kennedy's Last Days: The Assassination That Defined a Generation Online
Authors: Bill O'Reilly
TIME LINE
May 29, 1917 | | John Fitzgerald Kennedy is born to Joseph and Rose Kennedy on Beals Street in Brookline, Massachusetts. |
August 26, 1920 | | The Nineteenth Amendment is adopted. It gives women the right to vote. |
September 12, 1924 | | John begins kindergarten at Edward Devotion School. |
May 20, 1927 | | Captain Charles Lindbergh leaves New York in the plane the |
September 1927 | | The Kennedy family moves from Massachusetts to New York. |
October 29, 1929 | | U.S. stock prices drop precipitously, causing the Great Depression. |
September 19, 1931 | | John begins his freshman year at the Choate School, a private high school in Wallingford, Connecticut. |
March 4, 1933 | | Franklin Delano Roosevelt is sworn in as the 32nd president of the United States. |
December 1935 | | John has a serious case of hepatitis and is forced to withdraw from college. |
The 1937 Harvard junior varsity football team. Kennedy is standing third from the right in the third row.
[JFK Presidential Library and Museum]
January 7, 1938 | | FDR appoints Joseph Kennedy to be ambassador to Great Britain. |
June 20, 1940 | | John graduates |
October 8, 1941 | | John joins the U.S. Navy Reserves. |
December 7, 1941 | | Japan attacks Pearl Harbor. |
December 8, 1941 | | The U.S. declares war on Japan. |
August 2, 1943 | | PT-109 |
May 31, 1944 | | John enters a hospital in Massachusetts because of back problems. |
June 12, 1944 | | John is awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for heroic conduct as the commanding officer of |
August 12, 1944 | | John’s older brother, Joe Jr., is killed on a mission over the English Channel. |
April–June 1945 | | John covers the conference that drafts plans for the United Nations, as a reporter for the International News Service. |
August 6, 1945 | | The U.S. drops the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. More than 140,000 people are killed instantly. As many as 30,000 more die of radiation poisoning within months. |
August 14, 1945 | | Japan surrenders. |
April 25, 1946 | | John announces his candidacy for the Democratic congressional seat from the Massachusetts Eleventh Congressional District. |
June 18, 1946 | | John wins his party’s nomination. |
November 5, 1946 | | John is elected to the House of Representatives. |
November 2, 1948 | | John is elected for a second term. |
June 25, 1950 | | North Korea invades the Republic of Korea. |
November 7, 1950 | | John is elected for a third term. |
April 7, 1952 | | John announces his candidacy for the U.S. Senate. |
November 4, 1952 | | John is elected to the Senate. Eisenhower is elected to the presidency with Richard Nixon as his vice president. |
September 12, 1953 | | John Fitzgerald Kennedy marries 24-year-old Jacqueline Lee Bouvier. |
May 17, 1954 | | The Supreme Court rules in |
October 21, 1954 | | John has back surgery. He writes |
February 1955 | | John has follow-up back surgery. |
May 6, 1957 | | Profiles in Courage |
October 4, 1957 | | Russia launches an artificial space satellite, |
November 27, 1957 | | Caroline Kennedy is born. |
November 4, 1958 | | John is reelected to the Senate. |
January 1, 1959 | | Fidel Castro becomes leader of Cuba in a coup. |
January 2, 1960 | | John announces his candidacy for president. |
September 26, 1960 | | Kennedy and Richard Nixon, the Republican candidate, have their first of four televised debates. |
November 8, 1960 | | Kennedy is elected 35th president of the United States. |
November 25, 1960 | | John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr. is born. |
January 20, 1961 | | Kennedy is inaugurated. He is 43 years old. |
March 1, 1961 | | Kennedy signs a bill establishing the Peace Corps. |
March 29, 1961 | | Kennedy reorganizes the Council on Youth Fitness. |
April 17, 1961 | | Bay of Pigs invasion fails. |
May 5, 1961 | | The United States sends its first astronaut, Alan Shepard, into space. |
May 11, 1961 | | The United States sends 400 Special Forces and 100 advisers to Vietnam. |
May 14–20, 1961 | | Freedom riders are attacked in Birmingham, Anniston, and Montgomery, Alabama. |
August 13, 1961 | | The Berlin Wall closes the border between East and West Berlin. |
March 26, 1962 | | Kennedy gives Robert Frost the Congressional Medal of Honor. |
September 30, 1962 | | Kennedy sends federal marshals to protect James Meredith, the first black student at the University of Mississippi. |
October 16–28, 1962 | | The Cuban missile crisis unfolds. |