Born on this day in Brookline, Massachusetts, the second of nine children, John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy (1917-1963) was a Harvard graduate, Naval war hero and Pulitzer Prize writer before becoming the 35th President of the United States.

"If more politicians knew poetry, and more poets knew politics, I am convinced the world would be a little better place in which to live," Kennedy once observed.

Kennedy was the first Roman Catholic elected President  and the first president born in the 20th century. He won the White House by a narrow popular margin.

An eloquent orator, his promise of America's “New Frontier” brought hope and inspiration as he created the Peace Corps and set the goal of putting a man on the moon.

"One person can make a difference," he said, "and every person must try."

With charisma, living a life often romanticized as "Camelot," Kennedy was a dynamic, gifted leader who believed that the people of the world could come together and solve their problems.

"A man does what he must—in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures—and that is the basis of all human morality," said the man who Americans in a February 2000 Gallop Poll named "the greatest President in history."

More JOHN KENNEDY Quotations

Liberty is worth the fight.