John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK, is the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his death in 1963.

After military service as commander of Motor Torpedo Boats PT-109 and PT-59 during the Second World War in the South Pacific, Kennedy represents Massachusetts' 11th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953 as a Democrat.

Thereafter, he serves in the U.S. Senate from 1953 until 1960.

Kennedy defeats Vice President and Republican candidate Richard Nixon in the 1960 U.S. presidential election.

At 43 years of age, he is the youngest to have been elected to the office, the second-youngest President (after Theodore Roosevelt), and the first person born in the 20th century to serve as president.

A Catholic, Kennedy is the only non-Protestant president, and is the only president to have won a Pulitzer Prize.

Events during his presidency include the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the building of the Berlin Wall, the Space Race, the African-American Civil Rights Movement, and early stages of the Vietnam War.

Therein, Kennedy increases the number of military advisers, special operation forces, and helicopters in an effort to curb the spread of communism in South East Asia.

The Kennedy administration adopts the policy of the Strategic Hamlet Program implemented by the South Vietnamese government.

It involves certain forced relocation, village internment, and segregation of rural South Vietnamese from northern and southern communist insurgents.

Kennedy is assassinated on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas.

Lee Harvey Oswald, arrested that evening, is accused of the crime but is shot and killed by Jack Ruby two days later, before a trial can take place.

The FBI and the Warren Commission officially conclude that Oswald was the lone assassin.

However, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) concludes that those investigations were flawed and that Kennedy was probably assassinated as the result of a conspiracy.

Kennedy's controversial Department of Defense TFX fighter bomber program leads to a Congressional investigation that lasts from 1963 to 1970.

Since the 1960s, information concerning Kennedy's private life has come to light.

Details of Kennedy's health problems with which he struggled have become better known, especially since the 1990s.

Although initially kept secret from the general public, reports of Kennedy's philandering have garnered much press.

Kennedy ranks highly in public opinion ratings of U.S. presidents.

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