'Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country' (1961)
Line from his inaugural address
US Presidents · 20th century
John F. Kennedy
1917–1963 · American
Democratic
In office: 1961–1963
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president, was the youngest person ever elected president and the first Roman Catholic to hold the office. His short presidency saw the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the commitment to land a man on the Moon, before he was assassinated in Dallas on 22 November 1963.
How to spot them
- ▸JFK; 'Ask not what your country can do for you'
- ▸'Ich bin ein Berliner'; 'We choose to go to the Moon'
- ▸PT-109; Profiles in Courage; Camelot; the New Frontier
- ▸Assassinated in Dealey Plaza, Dallas; Lee Harvey Oswald; the Warren Commission
In office
Founding of the Peace Corps (1961)
Volunteer programme sending Americans to work in developing countries
The Bay of Pigs invasion (1961)
Failed CIA-backed landing of Cuban exiles against Castro
The 'We choose to go to the Moon' speech (1962)
Delivered at Rice University, Houston
The Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)
Thirteen-day nuclear stand-off over Soviet missiles in Cuba, resolved by a naval 'quarantine' and negotiation
'Ich bin ein Berliner' (1963)
Speech in West Berlin in support of the city
Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963)
Banned nuclear tests in the atmosphere, in space and underwater
Key ideas
- The New Frontier: his domestic and space programme
- The Alliance for Progress with Latin America
- The 'Camelot' image of his administration, popularised by Jacqueline Kennedy after his death
Quick-fire facts
- •35th president; youngest ever elected (43), though Theodore Roosevelt was younger on taking office
- •First Roman Catholic president
- •Born in Brookline, Massachusetts; son of Joseph P. Kennedy
- •Commanded the torpedo boat PT-109, sunk by a Japanese destroyer in 1943
- •Won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography for Profiles in Courage (1957)
- •Took part in the first televised presidential debates, against Richard Nixon in 1960
- •A Moscow–Washington 'hotline' was set up in 1963 after the missile crisis
- •Buried at Arlington National Cemetery beneath an eternal flame; New York's Idlewild Airport was renamed after him
Drill it — 9 cards
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Sources
- Miller Center, University of Virginia — John F. Kennedy
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — John F. Kennedy