Born: 1917, Brookline, MA
Died: 1963

John F. Kennedy was blessed with wealth, charm, intelligence and good looks. He was the second child of a Boston millionaire whose driving ambition was to put a son in the White House. After graduating from Harvard, “Jack” joined the Navy. He earned a hero’s medal for leading his surviving crew to safety, despite a grave back injury, after the Japanese sunk his PT boat. When his older brother was killed in action, Jack inherited the politician’s mantle. Elected to the U.S. House and then the Senate, he lost his bid for the Democratic Vice-Presidential nomination in 1956. In 1960, he led the ticket. Aided by his TV debates and choice of Lyndon Johnson as his running mate, JFK narrowly defeated Richard Nixon — becoming the nation’s first Catholic and youngest elected President.

In 1961 Kennedy supported a failed mission by anti-Castro Cuban exiles at the Bay of Pigs. The next year, the Soviets put nuclear missiles in Cuba, but withdrew them after JFK imposed a naval blockade. Tensions eased with the 1963 nuclear test ban treaty though the “space race” continued. A supporter of the arts, JFK was also mindful of the disadvantaged. He founded the Peace Corps and proposed wide-ranging civil rights legislation though he never saw its enactment. On November 22, 1963, he was shot to death in a Dallas motorcade. The nation watched and mourned as he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Thirty-Fifth President
Democrat

Born: 1831, Orange, OH
Died: 1881

James Garfield was born in a log cabin on an Ohio farm. His father died when he was only two, and Garfield worked on canal boats to put himself through Williams College, later becoming a classics professor and college president. A vociferous opponent of slavery, he fought for the Union in the Civil War, rising to the rank of major general. He reluctantly resigned his commission when elected to Congress in 1862, after serving three years in the Ohio Senate. “Boatman Jim” was chosen by the Republicans in 1880 as a compromise Presidential candidate on the 36th ballot. He defeated the Democrats by less than 10,000 popular votes.

Once in office, Garfield took a stand against political corruption. He won a showdown with powerful New York Senator Roscoe Conkling, with his choice of Conkling’s rival to head the New York Customs House. But an unrelated patronage decision cost Garfield his life. On July 2, 1881, Garfield was shot by an attorney who had been denied a government post. He died two months later – the second President killed by an assassin’s bullet.

Twentieth President
Republican

Born: 1809, Hardin County, KY
Died: 1865

Abraham Lincoln grew up in poverty on the Indiana frontier. Hard-working and self-educated, he was a farmhand, boatman, store manager, postman and surveyor before entering Illinois politics and becoming a successful trial lawyer. Passionately opposed to slavery, “Honest Abe” joined the Republican Party in 1856, and ran against Democrat Stephen Douglas for the U.S. Senate two years later. He lost, but his brilliant campaign oratory secured him the Republican Presidential nomination in 1860.

Between Lincoln’s election and inauguration, seven Southern states seceded. On April 12, 1861, the Confederates attacked Fort Sumter. Nearly two years later, the Civil War still raging, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation (slavery was later banned by the 13th Amendment). In November 1863, Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address, vowing “that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” The bloodiest conflict in U.S. history, the Civil War cost more American lives than the two World Wars and Vietnam combined. Re-elected in 1864, Lincoln lived to see the south surrender on April 9, 1865. Five days later, he was assassinated, before he could fulfill his pledge to “bind up the nation’s wounds.”

Sixteenth President
Republican