John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Attended the public and private schools of Brookline, Massachusetts, Choate School, Wallingford, Connecticut, the London School of Economics at London, UK, and Princeton University; graduated from Harvard University in 1940; attended Stanford University School of Business; during the Second World War served as a lieutenant in the US Navy 1941-1945; patrol torpedo boat commander in the South Pacific; author and newspaper correspondent; elected as a Democrat to the 80th, 81st, and 82nd Congresses (3 Jan 1947 - 3 Jan 1953); did not seek renomination in 1952; elected to the US Senate in 1952; reelected in 1958 and served 3 Jan 1953 - 22 Dec 1960; chairman, Special Committee on the Senate Reception Room (84th and 85th Congresses); unsuccessfully sought the Democratic vice presidential nomination in 1956; elected President of the United States in 1960, narrowly defeating the Republican candidate, Vice President Richard Nixon, by a margin of 118,550 votes; became the youngest man and the first Roman Catholic ever elected to the presidency of the United States; authorized a plan for a covert invasion of Cuba to overthrow the Communist regime of Fidel Castro; invasion was repulsed at the Bay of Pigs (17 Apr 1961), embarrassing the administration; deterioration of relations with the Soviet Union culminated in the Cuban missile crisis (1962); used federal troops to assure the admission of Afro-Americans at the universities of Mississippi and Alabama (1962, 1963); fell victim to assassination attempt in Dallas, Texas (12:30 p.m. 22 Nov 1963); the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in 1979 that Kennedy's death was the result of a probable conspiracy. Biography source: [1]