JFK: History in an Hour
Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour.John Fitzgerald Kennedy, America’s youngest President, was assassinated barely one thousand days into his Presidency. In the fiftieth anniversary of his death, this is the story of the man who brought an aspirational new approach to American politics.Born into the glamorous cast of Kennedys, JFK was propelled to political success despite family tragedy, disappointment and pressure. He engaged in a Space Race, averted the Cuban missile crisis and showed solidarity with the fledging civil rights movement. Throughout all he maintained a charismatic public image as son, brother and husband, despite his concealed personal failings and the chronic illness that beset him. JFK: History in an Hour provides a compelling and comprehensive overview of the man who epitomised the hopes of a decade and remains an influential figure to this day.Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour.
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JFK
History in an Hour
Sinead Fitzgibbon
History in an Hour is a series of ebooks to help the reader learn the basic facts of a given subject area. Everything you need to know is presented in a straightforward narrative and in chronological order. No embedded links to divert your attention, nor a daunting book of 600 pages with a 35-page introduction. Just straight in, to the point, sixty minutes, done. Then, having absorbed the basics, you may feel inspired to explore further.
Give yourself sixty minutes and see what you can learn …
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Contents
Got Another Hour?
About the Publisher
Few in political history have enjoyed the kind of instant recognition afforded to John Fitzgerald Kennedy, America’s 35>th President. Known simply as JFK, Kennedy’s good looks and easy charm was potently deployed through the newly influential medium of television. This meant that his journey to the White House captured the imagination of millions of people, both domestically and internationally.
For many, Kennedy’s inauguration heralded a bright new dawn for US politics. At just forty-three, he was the youngest man ever to be elected President; he was also the first Roman Catholic. With youth, charisma and widespread popularity on his side, the future seemed bright.
Unfortunately, he was denied the chance to live up to his early promise. Barely one thousand days into his presidency, which had been marred by civil unrest in the segregated South and the threat of nuclear war from the Soviet Union, Kennedy’s life was curtailed by an assassin’s bullet in Dallas, Texas, in 1963. The country’s youngest-ever elected president thus became the youngest to die – thereby immortalizing JFK as a tragic hero.
However, since his death, details have emerged of a private life at odds with his public persona. Rumours of serial adultery, hidden health problems, a secret marriage, and even drug addictions have since blurred his once pristine image.
This, in an hour, is the history of JFK.
By the mid-twentieth-century, the Kennedy family was among the richest and most powerful in America. Just three generations previously, JFK’s paternal and maternal ancestors had endured lives of poverty in famine-stricken Ireland. Such was their deprivation that both of his great-grandfathers – Thomas Fitzgerald and Patrick Kennedy – were forced to abandon their impoverished country in search of a new and better life in the US State of Massachusetts.
John ‘Honey Fitz’ Fitzgerald
In their adoptive country, both families enjoyed success in business and eventually became involved in politics. Thomas Fitzgerald’s son – John Francis Fitzgerald, known as ‘Honey Fitz’ – was a member of both the US House of Representatives and the Massachusetts Senate, in addition to serving two terms as Boston’s first Irish–Catholic mayor. After making his fortune from whiskey importation and a successful foray into banking, Patrick Kennedy’s only son, PJ, also turned his mind to a career in public service. PJ Kennedy would eventually serve five years in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, as well as six years in the State Senate.
Patrick Joseph ‘PJ’ Kennedy
On 7 October 1914, after a seven-year courtship, Honey Fitz’s eldest daughter, Rose, married PJ Kennedy’s eldest son, Joseph, thus merging these two influential Irish–American clans.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Born Brookline, Mass. (83 Beals Street) May 29, 1917
With these few simple words, handwritten on a notecard, Rose Kennedy recorded the birth of her second son – a handsome blue-eyed boy who, although named after his maternal grandfather, would become known as ‘Jack’.
The family’s fortunes had continued to improve in the three years since the Fitzgerald-Kennedy marriage. By the time of Jack’s birth, they lived a comfortable upper-middle-class life in the Boston suburb of Brookline. Over the years, Joe would successfully try his hand at a number of businesses, including stock market speculation, movie producing, and liquor importation. By 1927, the family had moved to the exclusive suburb of Riverdale, New York.
The Kennedy family home in Brookline
Despite the privileged circumstances of his birth, Jack was unlucky in his health. A sickly child, he suffered from numerous childhood illnesses, including whooping cough, chicken pox, and measles. And then, three months shy of his third birthday, Jack contracted a virulent strain of scarlet fever – a potentially deadly disease in these days prior to the discovery of penicillin. For a time, it appeared that Jack would succumb to the illness, but after a month in hospital, he began to recover. He would continue to struggle with ill-health for the rest of his life.
