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Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy of Massachusetts officially announces his intention to run for the Presidency of the United States.
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Senator Kennedy is officially nominated as the Democratic presidential candidate
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Senator Kennedy delivers a campaign speech in which he strongly reaffirms his support for separation of church and state, which successfully cooled tensions surrounding his Catholicism. he would become the first Catholic President in American history
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Senator Kennedy and Vice President Richard Nixon participate in the first televised presidential debate
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Current Vice President and Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon concedes the presidency to Kennedy
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Kennedy's presidency begins with his inauguration at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. Kennedy and he is sworn in by Chief Justice Earl Warren. Kennedy delivers a widely praised inaugural address, asking Americans to "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" and for the people of the world to "ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man
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Kennedy meets with former President Harry S. Truman and issues Executive Order 10914 directing a doubling of the quantity of surplus food distributed to needy families.
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Kennedy meets with former Congressman George McGovern of South Dakota. He also meets with Democratic legislative leaders, and receives a tour of the shelter areas of the White House from Naval Aide, Cmdr. Tazewell Shepard. He is presented plans for what would become the Food for Peace program and designates McGovern Director.
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Kennedy holds his first regular live televised press conference in the State Department Auditorium. Where he announces the release of two surviving USAF crewman by the Soviet Union .
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President Kennedy holds his second presidential news conference; he announces the establishment of five pilot food stamp distribution projects.
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Kennedy orders money and surplus food totalling $4 million for Cuban refugees in fiscal year 1961.
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He fulfilling a campaign pledge, issues an executive order creating a temporary Peace Corps and asks Congress to authorize the program permanently.
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A U.S.-sponsored invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs fails. With inadequate support and facing an overwhelming force, the CIA-trained brigade of anti-Castro exiles is defeated in a few days. Kennedy takes responsibility for the disaster.
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Black and white youths supported by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) set out on the “freedom rides” to test the enforcement of ICC rules against discrimination in interstate travel.
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Kennedy addresses Congress and pledges that the US will land a man on the mood by the end of the decade.
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Kennedy delivers his second State of the Union address
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Kennedy halts almost all trade with Cuba
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Marilyn Monroe sings Happy Birthday, Mr. President to President Kennedy in Madison Square Garden as part of the President's 45th birthday celebrations. His birthday is really on May 29
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The U.S. Supreme Court rules that segregation in transportation facilities is unconstitutional.
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In a televised address, Kennedy announces a discovery of Soviet missiles in Cuba, making public the Cuban missile crisis.
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After thirteen days, the Cuban Missile Crisis is resolved. The United States will pledge not to invade Cuba in exchange for the removal of the Soviet weapons.
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Kennedy lifts the naval blockade of Cuba.
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The March on Washington attracts 250,000 demonstrators to the nation's capital in support of civil rights legislation. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his “I Have a Dream” speech.
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Kennedy signs a limited nuclear test-ban treaty with the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom. October 07, 1963
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South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem is assassinated in U.S.-supported coup.
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Kennedy is assassinated while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas. Lee Harvey Oswald is arrested and accused of the crime. Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson is sworn in as the thirty-sixth President of the United States following the assassination.
