John Fitzgerald Kennedy was the 35th President of the United States, serving from January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963.

His full name was John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and he was commonly known as John F. Kennedy or, briefly, JFK. He was born on May 29, 1917, in Brooklyn, Massachusetts. His father was Joseph P. Kennedy and his mother was Rose Fitzgerald. He had three brothers—Robert Kennedy, (Ted) Edward Moore Kennedy, and Joseph P. Kennedy Jr.—as well as five sisters. Kennedy graduated from Harvard College.

During the Second World War, he served in the military as a Patrol Torpedo (PT) boat commander.

In 1946, Kennedy was elected to the United States Congress as the Democratic Party candidate from the state of Massachusetts. He won the elections again in 1948 and 1950 and served three terms in the House of Representatives between 1947 and 1953.

In 1960, he became the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate. By defeating the then Vice President Richard Nixon in the elections, he became the youngest elected president in U.S. history at the age of 43.

In 1961, Kennedy supported an operation aimed at overthrowing Cuban leader Fidel Castro by sending approximately 1,400 pro-American Cuban exiles to Cuba with the assistance of the CIA. This operation, known as the Bay of Pigs Invasion, ended in failure. Most of those who landed were either killed or captured. Kennedy later publicly accepted full responsibility for the incident.

In 1962, American U-2 spy planes detected the presence of Soviet-made medium-range ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads in Cuba, a country located very close to the United States. This discovery brought the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war. After intense negotiations, Kennedy and the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev reached an agreement. The Soviet Union agreed to withdraw its missiles from Cuba, while the United States promised to remove its missiles from Turkey.

On November 22, 1963, during an official visit to Dallas, Kennedy was assassinated. On the same day, Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for the murder. Two days later, Oswald himself was shot and killed by Jack Ruby in the basement of the Dallas police headquarters.

The reasons behind Kennedy’s assassination and the individuals responsible remain a subject of mystery. Numerous conspiracy theories have been proposed and debated over the years.

The assassination was recorded by a man named Abraham Zapruder using an 8 mm Bell & Howell camera, and this footage became the primary evidence in subsequent investigations. Authorities stated that an Italian-made Mannlicher-Carcano rifle with a scope was used. While Kennedy was greeting the public in an open-top car, the first bullet entered below the back of his neck and exited through his tie knot. The second bullet severely wounded Texas Governor John Connally in the back. The third and fatal shot shattered the upper part of Kennedy’s head. He was rushed directly to the hospital, but despite all efforts, he could not be saved. Approximately 5.6 seconds passed between the first and last shots.

Kennedy married Jacqueline Kennedy (Lee Bouvier) on September 12, 1953. They had four children: Caroline Kennedy, John F. Kennedy Jr., Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, and Arabella Kennedy.

The fate of the Kennedy family has often been described as tragic. In 1944, Kennedy’s older brother Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. died during the Second World War. In 1948, the eldest sibling and Kennedy’s sister Kathleen Cavendish was killed in a plane crash during a trip to France. In 1963, Kennedy himself was assassinated. In 1968, his youngest brother Robert Kennedy was assassinated while campaigning for the U.S. presidency. In 1984, Robert Kennedy’s son David Kennedy died from a drug overdose. In 1997, another son, Michael Kennedy, died in an accident while playing American football during a ski trip. In 1999, Kennedy’s son John F. Kennedy Jr. died together with his wife in a plane crash into the ocean at night. Among the Kennedy brothers, only (Ted) Edward Moore Kennedy died of natural causes; he passed away from cancer on August 25, 2009.

Source: Biyografiler.com