Jhon F.

Kennedy
John F. Kennedy was the 35th President of the United States (1961-1963), the
youngest man elected to the office. On November 22, 1963, when he was hardly
past his first thousand days in office, JFK was assassinated in Dallas, Texas,
becoming also the youngest President to die.
He was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, on May 29, 1917. Graduating from
Harvard in 1940, he entered the Navy. Kennedy's mother, Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald,
was a Boston debutante, and his father, Joseph Kennedy Sr., was a successful
banker. He married Jacqueline Bouvier on September 12, 1953 and they had three
children.
After a short stint as a journalist, Kennedy entered politics, serving in the US House
of Representatives from 1947 to 1953 and the US Senate from 1953 to 1961.
During his term in office he forced the Russians to back down during the Cuban
Missile Crisis when the world was on the brink of nuclear war. He played a key role
in important events of the era. John F Kennedy was instrumental in the creation of
the Peace Corps in 1961. In the same year Alan Shepard became the first American
in space. The Cold War continued during this time and the Berlin Wall was built. In
1961 the incident known as the Bay of Pigs occurred that was an unsuccessful
action by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba. The
problems in Cuba escalated in 1962 culminating in the Cuban Missile Crisis when
JFK forced the Russians to back down when the world was on the brink of nuclear
war. He took vigorous action in the cause of equal rights, calling for new civil rights
legislation.
JFK was assassinated and died on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas. The
assassin was believed to be Lee Harvey Oswald who was killed two days later in the
Dallas city jail by Jack Ruby. Various conspiracy theories have been suggested but
none have been substantiated.

Freedom Riders
Freedom Riders were groups of white and African American civil rights activists who
participated in Freedom Rides, bus trips through the American South in 1961 to
protest segregated bus terminals. Freedom Riders tried to use “whites-only”
restrooms and lunch counters at bus stations in Alabama, South Carolina and other
Southern states. The groups were confronted by arresting police officers—as well as
horrific violence from white protestors—along their routes, but also drew international
attention to their cause and drew hundreds of new Freedom Riders to the cause. On
May 29 Kennedy ordered the Interstate Commerce Commission to enforce even
stricter guidelines banning segregation in interstate travel. Still, Freedom Riders
continued to travel by public transportation in the South until that dictate took effect
in September.
This movement lasted 7 months and 6 days (May 4 - December 10, 1961)