Formative Years 

Born in Massachusetts in 1917, John Fitzgerald Kennedy would be but an addition to a notable line of politicians. Having a businessman and politician father and a socialite and philanthropist mother, JFK and his eight siblings were born and raised by affluent and prosperous parents with a reputation to uphold. Throughout most of his life, JFK experienced significant medical issues that forced him to suspend his enterprises, but nevertheless he remained diligent in his works and always finished what he’d started.  

Throughout his primary school years, JFK attended several reputable private, college-prep, and boarding schools, yet actively kept up rebellious behavior as the shadow and echo of his older brother. He had been the business manager of the school yearbook and was voted the “most likely to succeed”. JFK studied abroad at London School of Economics before briefly attending Princeton University and later the Naval Reserve Officer Training School at Northwestern University. He also attended Harvard University and finished with a bachelor in government and enrolled in Stanford Graduate School of Business. After completing a considerable amount of reputable universities, JFK worked with his brother at the US Embassy in London and joined the United States Naval Reserve. He served in the House of Representatives for six years and later served in the Senate for two terms. At the age of forty-six he was elected the 35th President of the United States, beating out Richard Nixon and serving from 1961 to 1963.  

Accolades  

In 1961, President JFK established the Peace Corps; a program through which American volunteers would help underdeveloped nations in areas such as education, farming, health care, and construction. The Cuban Missile Crisis began within his presidency due to the placement of nuclear missiles by the Soviet Union in Cuba, and marked the closest point that the Cold War came to shifting into a full scale nuclear war. After the duration of tense negotiations sparked by a message from Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to JFK, the Cuban Missile Crisis came to an end. JFK supported racial integration and civil rights and actively worked towards civil rights for African Americans. He signed Executive Order 10925 which required affirmative action to ensure all employees are treated equally irrespective of their race, creed, color, or national origin. JFK was mostly responsible for the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and signed the Equal Pay Act of 1963 to abolish wage disparity based on sex. It amended the previous Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 and created a notable step towards closing the wage gap in women’s pay. 

The Ending 

At the mark of over three years of liberating work as the President of the United States, John F. Kennedy took part in a political trip to Texas to level disharmony in the Democratic Party between liberals Ralph Yarborough and Don Yarborough and conservative John Connally. While riding in a presidential motorcade through downtown Dallas, President Kennedy was assassinated at 12:30 pm on Friday, November 22, 1963 being shot in the back, the bullet exiting via his throat, and once in the head.