John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, the second of nine children to Joseph P. and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. The family developed strong Irish Catholic democratic roots in America's political system. He was schooled in the religious teachings of the Roman Catholic church and the political precepts of the Democratic Party. Both of his grandfathers, Patrick J. Kennedy and John F. (Honey Fitz) Fitzgerald were elected to public office. His father J. P. Kennedy was also involved in politics and served the post of ambassador to Great Britain John served as his secretary, drawing on that experience to write his senior thesis ,he graduated from Harvard University in 1940 on Great Britain's military unpreparedness. Then he expanded that thesis into a best-selling book, Why England Slept published in1940.
In the fall of 1941 Kennedy joined the U.S. Navy. In 1943, he became a war hero when he helped save the lives of the men on the boat he commanded, PT 109, when they were torpedoed by a Japanese destroyer. With his back injured, he managed to swim with his surviving men to an island three miles away and they were rescued five days later ,this cause him be awarded by the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps Medal for heroism.
In 1946, Kennedy ran for Congress for the Boston district and was reelected twice . Kennedy served three terms in the House of Representatives (1947-53) as a basic liberal. He advocated better working conditions, more public housing, higher wages, lower prices, cheaper rents, and more Social Security for the aged. In foreign policy he was an early supporter of Cold War policies. In 1952 he ran for the U.S. Senate against the popular incumbent, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. and Kennedy won. On September 12, 1953, Kennedy marry Jacqueline Lee Bouvier, twelve years younger than Kennedy and from a socially prominent family. In 1956, he was hardly defeated for the Democratic vice-presidential nomination.
