John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald Kennedy — people still call him JFK — was a Democrat from Massachusetts and belonged to the Democratic Party. He was the youngest person to be elected president: 43 years old in 1960. He was the first U.S. president who was Catholic, and the first president born in the twentieth century (1917). He served from 1961 to 1963. His vice president was Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas. In World War II he commanded the famous boat PT-109. A Japanese destroyer rammed it. Kennedy helped save his crew and became a war hero.

In 1961 he challenged the country to land a man on the Moon and return him safely. NASA met the deadline in 1969. He created the Peace Corps, a volunteer program that still sends Americans overseas to teach, farm, and build. His inaugural address asked Americans to ask what they could do for their country — service, not sitting back. In Berlin in 1963 he told a cheering crowd “Ich bin ein Berliner,” which means “I am a Berliner.” He was telling a divided city that the free world stood with them.

The Bay of Pigs was a failed 1961 invasion of Cuba. Cuban exiles, backed by the United States, tried to topple Fidel Castro and failed. Kennedy took the blame in public. Then came the Cuban Missile Crisis. In October 1962 the Soviets put nuclear missiles in Cuba. It lasted about thirteen days. Kennedy's main goal was to get the Soviet missiles out of Cuba without a nuclear war. He set up a naval quarantine and negotiated. The Soviets backed down. He was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Lee Harvey Oswald was charged with the murder.