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May 29, 1917: ·Birth of John F. Kennedy in Brookline, Massachusetts.
September 1927: ·Kennedy family moves to Riverdale, N.Y.
October 1929: ·Stock market crash triggers the Great Depression.
Fall 1931: ·JFK enrolls in Choate.
June 1935: ·JFK graduates from Choate, ranked 64th in a class of 112.
Fall 1935: ·JFK enrolls in Princeton; he drops out due to illness later that year.
1936-1940: ·JFK attends Harvard University.
1937: ·Joseph Kennedy, Sr. is named ambassador to Great Britain.
Winter 1938-Summer 1939: ·JFK tours Europe.
September 1939: ·Outbreak of World War II (1939-45) in Europe.
1940: ·JFK writes his senior thesis, on English foreign policy prior to World War II.
July 1940: ·JFK's thesis is published, under the title Why England Slept.
Summer 1941: ·JFK enters the U.S. armed forces.
December 7, 1941: ·Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, compelling the U.S. to enter World War II.
1942-43: ·JFK serves on, and then commands, a Motor Torpedo Boat, or "PT Boat," in the South Pacific.
August 2, 1943: ·JFK's PT boat is rammed by a Japanese destroyer. Under his leadership, most of the crew is eventually rescued. JFK receives the Purple Heart for his heroics.
Spring 1944: ·JFK enters Boston's Chelsea Naval Hospital with a lower back condition.
August 12, 1944: ·Joseph Kennedy, Jr. is killed while flying a mission over Europe.
March 1, 1945: ·JFK is discharged from the Navy.
June 17, 1946: ·JFK wins the Democratic primary for Massachusetts' Eleventh Congressional District.
November 1946: ·JFK is elected to the House of Representatives.
Fall 1948: ·JFK is elected to a second term in the House. While on a trip to England, he is diagnosed with Addison's Disease. His condition is kept secret from the public.
1950-1953: ·Korean War.
February 1950: ·Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy claims to have a list of Communists employed in the State Department. The era of "McCarthyism" begins.
November 1950: ·JFK is elected to a third term in the House.
November 1952: ·JFK defeats Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. to win election to the United States Senate. In the presidential election, Dwight Eisenhower and his running mate, Richard Nixon, defeat Adlai Stevenson.
September 12, 1953: ·JFK marries Jacqueline Bouvier.
December 2, 1954: ·Joseph McCarthy is censured by the U.S. Senate. JFK abstains from voting on the resolution.
1955-1956: ·JFK "writes" Profiles in Courage, a history of heroic American senators. In fact, the book is largely written by his speechwriter, Theodore Sorensen.
Summer 1956: ·At the Democratic National Convention, Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver edges JFK out to become Adlai Stevenson's running mate.
November 1956: ·Eisenhower crushes Stevenson and wins re-election.
1957: ·Profiles in Courage is awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
November 27, 1957: ·Caroline Bouvier Kennedy, JFK's daughter, is born.
November 1958: �·JFK wins re-election to the Senate by a comfortable margin.
July 1960: ·JFK wins the Democratic nomination for president and picks Lyndon Johnson as his running mate.
November 8, 1960: ·JFK defeats Nixon and becomes president.
November 25, 1960: ·Birth of John F. Kennedy, Jr.
January 20, 1961: ·John F. Kennedy is sworn in as President of the United States.
March 1961: ·JFK announces the establishment of the Peace Corps.
April 1961: ·Attempted U.S.-backed invasion of Cuba ends in disaster at the Bay of Pigs.
June 1961: ·JFK and Nikita Khrushchev hold a summit in Vienna.
August 1961: ·U.S.A. and Latin American nations join in the "Alliance for Progress."
March 1962: ·JFK forces the steel industry to eliminate a price increase.
October 16, 1962: ·The U.S. obtains photos of Soviet missile emplacements in Cuba, bringing about the Cuban Missile Crisis.
October 22, 1962: ·JFK announces naval quarantine of Cuba.
October 28, 1962: ·Soviet Union agrees to remove its missiles from Cuba.
June 1963: ·JFK calls civil rights struggle a "moral crisis" for America.
August 5, 1963: ·U.S. and Soviet Union agree to a nuclear test-ban treaty.
Early November, 1963: ·U.S.-backed coup overthrows the government of South Vietnam, replaces it with a military dictatorship.
November 22, 1963: ·JFK is assassinated while riding through the streets of Dallas, Texas. Lyndon Johnson becomes president.
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