Today is the 100th birthday anniversary of President John F. Kennedy

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https://www.whitehouse.gov/1600/presidents/johnfkennedy

Of Irish descent, he was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, on May 29, 1917. Graduating from Harvard in 1940, he entered the Navy. In 1943, when his PT boat was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer, Kennedy, despite grave injuries, led the survivors through perilous waters to safety.

Back from the war, he became a Democratic Congressman from the Boston area, advancing in 1953 to the Senate. He married Jacqueline Bouvier on September 12, 1953. In 1955, while recuperating from a back operation, he wrote Profiles in Courage, which won the Pulitzer Prize in history.

In 1956 Kennedy almost gained the Democratic nomination for Vice President, and four years later was a first-ballot nominee for President. Millions watched his television debates with the Republican candidate, Richard M. Nixon. Winning by a narrow margin in the popular vote, Kennedy became the first Roman Catholic President.

His Inaugural Address offered the memorable injunction: "Ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country." As President, he set out to redeem his campaign pledge to get America moving again. His economic programs launched the country on its longest sustained expansion since World War II; before his death, he laid plans for a massive assault on persisting pockets of privation and poverty.

Responding to ever more urgent demands, he took vigorous action in the cause of equal rights, calling for new civil rights legislation. His vision of America extended to the quality of the national culture and the central role of the arts in a vital society.

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More at link

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1. Rest In Peace, John F. Kennedy.

You were a truly great American. I wish we had you back today.

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[Miles Archer]

2. I'll never know how I "knew" on that day.

Teacher walked into my classroom, looking like she'd seen a ghost. Whispered something into my teacher's ear. Then SHE looked like she'd seen a ghost. Told us the buses were coming and we were all going home early, and that our parents would explain why when we got there.

And I knew exactly why. I was just a kid, had no reason to know, but somehow, I did.

R.I.P. President Kennedy.

[MichMary]

3. I was in second grade

I also remember that my teacher wouldn't tell us what was going on. Just spent the entire afternoon with a transistor radio up to her ear.

When I got home my mother told me what had happened. It was the last thing in the world I expected to hear.

[CTyankee]

4. I remember I was preparing some food for dinner and my husband calling me

and just saying "Turn on the tv. Kennedy has been shot." I remember thinking that it couldn't be that bad, maybe somebody just wounded him..."

Well, dinner that night never happened. What a sad and horrible time.

So when we get all bunched up over Trump, remember that we were there before as a nation, united in shock and disbelief...