Presidency of John F. Kennedy

Historical Context Note

Lucas Paul Richert (University of Saskatchewan)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Domains

Changes of government, elections and reigns

Dates

Date of occurrence 1961-03-04-1963-11-22

Places

United States (Location)

Resources

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In January 1960, John F. Kennedy announced that he was seeking the office of the President of the United States. After fending off Hubert Humphrey and Lyndon Johnson for the Democratic nomination, Kennedy proclaimed “We stand on the edge of a new frontier.” Kennedy defeated his Republican opponent, Vice-president Richard Nixon, by the narrowest of margins. In what was one of the closest presidential elections, Kennedy won by a margin of 120,000 votes out of total 70,000,000 votes cast. Thereafter, the Kennedy campaign was plagued by charges of vote-tampering and other election-rigging tactics. At 42, Kennedy was the youngest man ever elected president. He was also the first Roman Catholic elected president. He served a total of 1,037 days in office. Though the U.S. Congress was for…

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465 words

Citation: Richert, Lucas Paul. "Presidency of John F. Kennedy". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 20 October 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=594, accessed 26 April 2024.]

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