John F. Kennedy?s 95th Birthday On May 29

John F. Kennedy, the 35^th U.S. President, would have been 95 on Tuesday. Born in Brookline, Mass., he was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas, after less than three years as president.

Educated at Harvard after he withdrew from Princeton, Kennedy was a World War II hero after saving the life of a sailor under his command on the submarine chaser PT 109, which was rammed by a Japanese destroyer. A Democrat, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts in 1946, to the Senate in 1952 and narrowly defeated Vice President Richard M. Nixon for President in 1960.

In his short presidency, Kennedy created the Peace Corps, concluded the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the Soviet Union, handled the Cuban missile crisis and set forth new federal programs in civil rights, Medicare, voting rights and education. Most of these were carried to fruition by his successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson, who left office in 1969.

Kennedy had said he anticipated running against his friend Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.) in 1964, who was clobbered by Johnson. After the presidency, he told his friend Benjamin Bradlee, later executive editor of the Washington Post, he envisioned himself as a newspaper publisher or college president.

Kennedy's widow, Jacqueline Onassis, died in 1994. His son, John Jr., was killed in an airplane crash in 1999. His daughter, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, 54, lives in New York. His sister, Jean K. Smith, 84, a former U.S. ambassador to Ireland, is the only survivor of the president's eight siblings.