John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born on May 29, 1917, in Brookline, Massachusetts, to Rose Kennedy (née Fitzgerald) and Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. He was named after his maternal grandfather, John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, the mayor of Boston. Plagued by severe illnesses throughout his childhood, Kennedy was administered the Catholic Last Rites five times, the first as a newborn. He was the second of nine children—and the second of four sons (Joseph Jr., John, Robert, and Edward "Ted")—in a prominent Irish Catholic family. Because their mother often dressed Joe and Jack (as John was known to his family) in matching outfits, the brothers frequently competed for attention.
During John's youth, the family relocated from Boston to New York. He attended the Choate School, a private preparatory boarding school, though chronic health issues frequently disrupted his attendance. In the late 1930s, his father was appointed U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom and relocated to London with his wife, daughters Kathleen and Rosemary, and sons John and Robert. John briefly attended Princeton before transferring to Harvard University. His senior thesis, which analyzed Great Britain's delayed military entry into World War II, was published in 1940 under the title Why England Slept. Tragedy struck the family during and shortly after the war: his older brother Joe Jr., a naval aviator, was killed when his plane's ordnance detonated in mid-air, and his sister Kathleen later died in a plane crash alongside her husband.
In the early 1950s, Kennedy ran for Congress in Massachusetts and won. On September 12, 1953, he married Jacqueline Lee Bouvier. The couple had two surviving children: Caroline (born November 27, 1957) and John Jr. (born November 25, 1960). They also endured the loss of a stillborn daughter, Arabella, and an infant son, Patrick Bouvier, who died shortly after birth. In 1954, Kennedy underwent spinal surgery, and during his hospital convalescence, he wrote his acclaimed book, Profiles in Courage. Although his father had long envisioned Joe Jr. as a future U.S. President, that ambition shifted to John after his brother's death. In 1960, Kennedy ran for president against Republican nominee Richard Nixon and won in a historic, razor-thin victory.
Kennedy's presidency was marked by major Cold War confrontations, most notably the Bay of Pigs Invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis. In November 1963, he and First Lady Jacqueline traveled to Texas, where crowds greeted them with "Jack and Jackie" welcome signs. On November 22, 1963, while en route to deliver a speech in Dallas, Kennedy was struck by sniper fire from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository while riding in an open limousine. Severely wounded, he was pronounced dead at Parkland Memorial Hospital at 1:00 p.m.
The alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was apprehended shortly afterward following the fatal shooting of a Dallas police officer. However, Oswald was himself assassinated before he could be formally interrogated or brought to trial. In a curious historical parallel with Abraham Lincoln's assassination a century earlier, Kennedy was shot in a Ford-built Lincoln automobile, whereas Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theatre. Kennedy was laid to rest on November 25, 1963—the third birthday of his son, John Jr.
