When John F. Kennedy faced Richard M. Nixon in the 1960 presidential election, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that about 107.0 million civilians were of voting age in November 1960. Approximately 68.8 million people voted in the election. The Census Bureau's later analysis of the 1960 election reported a voting-age population of 107.6 million, meaning approximately 64.0 percent cast ballots. Kennedy won the popular vote by 112,827 votes.

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Anticipating that the United States would soon enter World War II, Kennedy joined the United States Naval Reserve and was commissioned an ensign on October 26, 1941. Initially assigned to the Office of Naval Intelligence, he transferred to patrol torpedo (PT) boat training in Charleston, South Carolina, shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. He received command of a PT boat at the Panama Canal in December 1942, and was reassigned to command PT-109 in the South Pacific. On August 2, 1943, Kennedy was in command of PT-109 when the Japanese destroyer Amagiri  struck and sank the PT boat. Two of the PT boat's crew died, but Kennedy's actions helped save several injured men, earning him the Navy and Marine Corps Medal.

Kennedy patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. intended that his oldest son, Joseph Kennedy Jr., would become a politician. When Joseph Jr. died during World War II, his father shifted his political aspirations to his second-oldest son, John. In 1946, James M. Curley vacated his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives after announcing his intention to seek another term as mayor of Boston. Kennedy won the Democratic nomination and went on to win the Massachusetts 11th Congressional district seat in the November general election. Six years later, Kennedy campaigned for a U.S. Senate seat against Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. With his father's financial assistance and his younger brother Robert F. Kennedy working as campaign manager, John F. Kennedy defeated Lodge in the 1952 election by 70,737 votes.

In January 1960, Kennedy announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination. After a competitive primary campaign, Kennedy secured the nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. He subsequently selected Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas as his running mate. Following the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, Kennedy and Republican nominee and Vice President Richard M. Nixon faced each other in four televised presidential debates. The debates gave millions of Americans an opportunity to compare the two candidates as they campaigned for the presidency. On November 8, 1960, voters narrowly elected John F. Kennedy as the 35th President of the United States by 112,827 popular votes. Kennedy won the Electoral College vote 303 to 219.

Between January 1961 and November 1963, Kennedy's presidency witnessed a number of major events in American history, including: the failed Bay of Pigs invasion meant to overthrow Cuban leader Fidel Castro; escalation of U.S. involvement in Vietnam; early successes in the American space program; construction of the Berlin Wall separating East and West Germany; school desegregation; the Cuban Missile Crisis; and the Civil Rights Movement's "March on Washington." Despite his administration's foreign and domestic challenges, Kennedy remained a popular president, with approval ratings ranging from 82 percent in spring 1961 to 58 percent shortly before arriving in Texas on November 21, 1963.

Kennedy's five-city tour of Texas included stops in San Antonio, Houston, and Fort Worth on November 21, followed by engagements in Dallas and Austin on November 22, 1963. Kennedy anticipated that the trip would raise a substantial amount of money for the Democratic Party, begin preparations for his 1964 reelection campaign, and help soothe tension between liberal and conservative factions of the Texas Democratic Party. Kennedy's trip began with a speech in San Antonio at Brooks Air Force Base, followed by a visit to the League of United Latin American Citizens in Houston. Arriving in Fort Worth that evening, Kennedy was greeted by cheering crowds as he drove from the airport to his hotel. Following a speech to the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce on the morning of November 22, Kennedy flew to Dallas for a lunch and speech at the Dallas Trade Mart.

Shortly before noon, the president's motorcade left the Dallas Love Field for the Trade Mart luncheon. Sharing the presidential limousine were two Secret Service agents, Texas Governor John Connally and his wife Nellie, and President John F. Kennedy and wife Jacqueline. Included in the motorcade's trailing vehicles were the vice presidential car carrying Lyndon B. Johnson and wife Lady Bird; Dallas Mayor Earle Cabell's car with his wife Elizabeth and Texas congressman Herbert Ray Roberts; National press cars carrying reporters and White House assistant press secretary Malcolm Kilduff; camera cars; Texas congressional delegation cars; a dignitary car; Secret Service cars and motorcycle escorts; and two buses carrying reporters, the White House communications personnel, military personnel carrying the presidential nuclear codes, and the president's physician.

Cheering crowds greeted the president as his motorcade drove through downtown Dallas, stopping twice so the president could shake hands and speak to supporters lining the street. As the motorcade entered Dealey Plaza, assassin Lee Harvey Oswald took aim from a sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository building. Bullets struck President Kennedy in the neck and head. Governor Connally was wounded in the chest, wrist, and leg. The presidential limousine sped from Dealey Plaza and arrived at Parkland Memorial Hospital approximately 8 minutes later. At approximately 1:30 p.m., Assistant White House Press Secretary Malcolm Kilduff announced that President Kennedy had died at 1:00 p.m. from his gunshot wounds. Shortly afterward, CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite reported the president's death to television viewers. Kennedy's body was taken back to Washington, DC, aboard Air Force One. Before departing Dallas, U.S. District Judge Sarah Tilghman Hughes administered the presidential oath of office to Lyndon B. Johnson aboard Air Force One.

Kennedy lay in repose in the East Room of the White House before lying in state at the U.S. Capitol on November 24 and 25. Hundreds of thousands of people came to Washington to pay their respects. On November 25, more than 1,200 invited guests from around the world attended Kennedy's funeral Mass at St. Matthew's Cathedral. A large crowd lined the route as a horse-drawn caisson carried Kennedy's casket from the Capitol to the cathedral and then to Arlington National Cemetery. An estimated 180 million people worldwide watched the procession and funeral on television. Sixty years after his death, millions of people still visit Kennedy's gravesite and its “eternal flame,” as well as the nearby grave of former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, the graves of his brothers Robert F. Kennedy and Edward M. Kennedy, and a memorial marker for his older brother Joseph P. Kennedy Jr.

You can learn more about the life and presidency of John F. Kennedy using census data and records. For example:

• John F. Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, on May 29, 1917. Incorporated in 1705, the town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, had a population of 484 at the time of our nation's first census in 1790. Three years after Kennedy's birth, the 1920 Census counted 37,748 living in the town. When Kennedy became the 35th president of the United States in 1960, Brookline was home to 54,044 people. In 2020, Brookline was home to the John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site and a population of 63,191.
• Kennedy graduated cum laude from Harvard University in 1940 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in government, concentrating in international affairs. Kennedy was one of eight U.S. presidents educated at Harvard University. The others were John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. Vice presidential alumni include John Adams, Elbridge Gerry, Theodore Roosevelt, and Al Gore. Other notable civil servants who attended Harvard University include 23 U.S. Supreme Court Justices such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., and John Roberts; dozens of cabinet secretaries (including Secretary of Labor Dean Acheson, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln, and Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson); leaders of foreign governments (including the president of Mexico Felipe Calderón; the president of Mongolia Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj; the president of Colombia Álvaro Uribe, and the president of South Korea Syngman Rhee), and hundreds of U.S. senators, representatives, and state governors.
• After being commissioned an ensign on October 26, 1941, John F. Kennedy worked at the Office of Naval Intelligence in Washington, DC, and later in a field office in Charleston, South Carolina. Today, the Office of Naval Intelligence is headquartered adjacent to the U.S. Census Bureau at the Suitland Federal Center in Suitland, Maryland.
• Seven U.S. presidents served in World War II, including Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush. These presidents were among approximately 16.1 million Americans who served in World War II. In 2022, the American Community Survey estimated that 131,423 World War II veterans remained in the United States. More than 5.4 million Vietnam-era veterans were living in the United States, along with approximately 4.3 million veterans of the Gulf War era beginning in September 2001, 4.0 million veterans of the Gulf War era from August 1990 through August 2001, and 664,177 Korean War veterans. There are no surviving veterans of World War I or earlier wars.
  • The last surviving American World War I (1917–1918) veteran was Frank W. Buckles, who died at the age of 110 on February 27, 2011.
  • Philippine-American War (1899–1902) and Boxer Rebellion (1899–1901) veteran Nathan E. Cook died on September 10, 1992, at the age of 106.
    
  • Civil War (1861–1865) Union Army veteran Albert Woolson was aged 109 when he died August 2, 1956, outliving last Confederate veteran Pleasant Crump, who died at the age of 104 on December 21, 1951.
    
  • Mexican War (1846–1848) veteran Owen Thomas Edgar died September 3, 1929, at the age of 98.
    
  • Fredrak W. Fraske was believed to be the last surviving U.S. Army veteran of the Indian Wars (1817–1898) when he died on June 18, 1973, aged 101.
    Hiram Cronk was the last surviving War of 1812 (1812–1815) veteran when he died on May 13, 1905, aged 105.
  • Daniel F. Bakeman survived the American Revolution (1775–1783) and lived to the age of 109. He died on April 5, 1869.
• John F. Kennedy's first elected office was serving in the U.S. House of Representatives (1947–1953) representing the now obsolete 11th Congressional District of Massachusetts that included sections of Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville. Massachusetts 11th Congressional district was represented by a number of notable politicians, including Manasseh Cutler (1801–1803), who helped draft the Northwest Ordinance of 1787; Jonathan Russell, who later negotiated the Treaty of Ghent ending the War of 1812; President John Quincy Adams; Henry L. Dawes, whose General Allotment Act of 1887 ("Dawes Act") had long-lasting consequences for American Indian and Alaska Native land ownership, sovereignty, and culture; James Curley, who also served four separate terms as Boston's mayor and one term as Massachusetts governor; and Thomas "Tip" O'Neill, Jr., who represented the district from 1953 to 1987 and served as the 47th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1977 to 1987. 
• Kennedy was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1952, representing Massachusetts from 1953 to 1960. Other notable senators from Massachusetts include President John Quincy Adams; politician and constitutional lawyer Daniel Webster; prominent abolitionist Charles Sumner; outspoken critic of the Treaty of Versailles ending World War I and League of Nations Henry Cabot Lodge; Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., who also served as U.S. Ambassador to West Germany, South Vietnam, and the United Nations; John F. Kennedy's brother Edward "Ted" Kennedy; and Sinclair Weeks, who was later the Secretary of Commerce responsible for establishing the Watkins Commission and approving ongoing funding for the Census Bureau's economic censuses. 
• When Democratic candidate John F. Kennedy faced Republican Richard M. Nixon in the 1960 presidential election, the voting age was generally 21. The Census Bureau estimated that 107.6 million civilians were of voting age in 1960. Approximately 68.8 million votes were cast for presidential electors, representing about 64.0 percent of the civilian voting-age population. Nixon won the states of Idaho and Utah, which had the highest voter turnout in the nation with 80.7 percent and 80.1 percent, respectively, of the voting-age population casting ballots. Kennedy won the states of Georgia and South Carolina where just 30.4 percent and 30.5 percent of the voting-age population cast ballots in 1960.
  
• In the 1960 presidential election between John F. Kennedy (D) and Richard M. Nixon (R), Kennedy won 49.72 percent of the popular vote to Nixon's 49.55 percent, a margin of 0.17 percentage points. Nixon won 26 states compared to Kennedy's 22-state win, but Kennedy prevailed with 303 electoral votes. Several other presidential elections have been decided by a very small number of popular and/or electoral votes and sometimes the popular vote winner does not always become president. For example, the 1876 presidential election was even closer than the election in 1960. Republican Rutherford B. Hayes lost the popular vote to Democrat Samuel J. Tilden by 3 percent, but Hayes received 185 electoral votes to Tilden's 184. More recently, Democratic candidate Al Gore lost the 2000 presidential election to Republican George W. Bush despite winning the popular vote by approximately 530,000 votes. In 2016, Republican Donald Trump won the electoral vote and presidency, but Democrat Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by approximately 2.8 million.
  
• In the 1960 presidential election, John F. Kennedy received 303 electoral votes to Richard M. Nixon's 219. Harry F. Byrd received 15 presidential electoral votes from unpledged Democratic electors in Alabama, Mississippi, and Oklahoma. Strom Thurmond received 14 electoral votes for vice president from Alabama and Mississippi, while a single Oklahoma elector cast a vice-presidential vote for Barry Goldwater. Several other candidates—including Eric Hass (Socialist Labor), Rutherford Losey Decker (Prohibition), Orval Eugene Faubus (States' Rights), Farrell Dobbs (Socialist Workers), Charles L. Sullivan (Constitution), and Joseph Bracken Lee (Conservative)—received a combined total of approximately 206,000 votes, but no electoral votes.
• John F. Kennedy is the only U.S. president to win a Pulitzer Prize. Newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer established the Pulitzer Prizes to recognize outstanding achievements in journalism and the arts. Kennedy won the 1957 biography award for his book Profiles in Courage. The book contains the biographies of eight senators who displayed noteworthy but often overlooked acts of bravery and integrity including: John Quincy Adams for breaking from the Federalist to join the Whig Party; Daniel Webster for his support of the Compromise of 1850; Thomas Hart Benton who remained a loyal Democrat despite disagreements over their pro-slavery stance; Sam Houston for his opposition to the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act; Edmund G. Ross for voting to acquit Andrew Johnson of his impeachment charges; Lucius Lamar for his attempts to mend the relationship between the North and South following the Civil War; George Norris for his support of Alfred Smith—the first Catholic nominated as a major political party presidential candidate; and Robert A. Taft for his criticism of trying Nazi war criminals ex post facto at the Nuremberg Trials.
  
• President John F. Kennedy made television history when he hosted the first live broadcast of a White House press conference. The event took place on January 25, 1961, from an auditorium at the U.S. State Department building in Washington, DC. During the televised news conference, Kennedy discussed planning to negotiate a nuclear test ban and famine relief to the Congo. The president also announced that the Soviet Union would release Captains John R. McKone and Freeman "Bruce" Olmstead who had been crew members of a Strategic Air Command bomber shot down in international airspace over the Arctic on July 1, 1960—just 2 months after the Soviets shot down and captured U-2 reconnaissance pilot Francis Gary Powers on May 1, 1960. The other four crew members of the RB-47H bomber who died in the July 1 incident were Captains Oscar Goforth, Dean Phillips, Eugene Posa, and Major Willard Palm.
  
• In a May 25, 1961, address to a Joint Session of Congress, President Kennedy called for the United States to land a man on the Moon and return him safely to Earth before the end of the decade. The speech shocked many observers because astronaut Alan Shepard had become the first American to make a sub-orbital flight to space just 3 weeks earlier. Despite initially lagging behind the Soviet Union's space program and suffering the tragic loss of astronauts Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Edward H. White, and Roger B. Chaffee in a 1967 fire, the United States met Kennedy's challenge. On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin became the first humans to land on the Moon. 
  
• Did you know that President John F. Kennedy was at the center of a disagreement that ended the friendship between "Rat Pack" entertainers Frank Sinatra and Peter Lawford. During a 1962 visit to California, President Kennedy had agreed to stay at Sinatra's home. However, soon after making the arrangements, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy urged his brother to cancel his plans. Robert Kennedy was concerned about Sinatra's associations with organized-crime figures, including "Bugsy" Siegel, Sam Giancana, and Charles "Lucky" Luciano. Sinatra asked Lawford—President Kennedy's brother-in-law—to intervene, but he refused. The incident contributed to the deterioration of Sinatra and Lawford's friendship and professional relationship, which had begun in the late 1940s.
  
• Within minutes of shooting President John F. Kennedy and Governor John Connally, Lee Harvey Oswald left the Texas School Book Depository. He briefly stopped at his rooming house before witnesses reported seeing him shoot and kill Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit at approximately 1:15 p.m. He was arrested inside the Texas Theatre at about 1:50 p.m. Dallas police first charged Oswald with Officer Tippit's murder and then the murder of President Kennedy later that evening. At approximately 11:20 a.m. on November 24, police detective Jim Leavelle was escorting Oswald to a waiting armored car to transfer him from Dallas police headquarters to the county jail. Suddenly, nightclub owner Jack Ruby jumped from the crowd and shot Oswald in the abdomen. Oswald was taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital where he died at 1:07 p.m. Ruby was found guilty and sentenced to death in 1964 for Oswald's murder on March 14, 1964. He successfully appealed the conviction, but died—at Parkland Memorial Hospital—on January 3, 1967, before a new trial could begin.
  In addition to appearing on the half dollar coin since 1964, hundreds of schools, parks, public buildings, U.S. Navy ships, and airports have been named in honor of John F. Kennedy including the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts; John F. Kennedy High School in Silver Spring, Maryland; John F. Kennedy Middle School in Port Jefferson Station, New York; John F. Kennedy Elementary School in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; the John F. Kennedy Federal Building in Boston, Massachusetts; the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (the "Kennedy Center") in Washington, DC; JFK Stadium in Springfield, Missouri; the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's John F. Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida; John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, New York; John F. Kennedy Memorial bridge spanning the Ohio River between Louisville, Kentucky, and Jeffersonville, Indiana; Kennedy Plaza in Providence, Rhode Island; the Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79); and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.

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James K. Polk won the 1844 presidential election against Henry Clay after vowing to annex the Republic of Texas to the United States.

Polk signed legislation making Texas the nation's 28th state on December 29, 1845.

Five years later, the 1850 Census counted 212,592 people living in Texas, including 154,034 White, 397 Free Colored, and 58,161 enslaved inhabitants.

The state's most populous cities in 1850 were Galveston (3,469), San Antonio (3,488), and Houston (1,863).

Between 1860 and 1880, the population of Texas grew from 604,215 to 1,591,749. It reached nearly 3.9 million in 1910 and 6.4 million by 1940.

In 1960, the census identified Houston, Texas, as the nation's seventh largest city with a population of 938,219.

By 1970, Dallas, Texas, (844,401) joined Houston among the ten largest cities in the United States.

With more than 14.2 million people, Texas was the nation's third most populous state in 1980. Twenty years later, the "Lone Star State" (20.8 million) was the nation's second most populous behind California (33.9 million).

The 2020 Census counted 29,145,505 people living in Texas. Three of the 10 most populous U.S. cities were in Texas in 2020: "Space City" Houston (2,304,580); "Alamo City" San Antonio (1,434,625); and "Big D" Dallas (1,304,379).

Notable Texas natives include Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Lyndon B. Johnson; Admiral Chester Nimitz; baseball Hall-of-Famer Ernie Banks; musicians Janis Joplin and "Buddy" Holly; gangsters Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow; actress Debbie Reynolds; and champion athlete Babe Didrikson Zaharias.

The United States mourned the loss of three presidents to assassins between 1865 and 1901.

On April 14, 1865, just 5 days after General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House, Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth shot President Abraham Lincoln as he watched a play at Ford's Theatre. Gravely wounded, Lincoln succumbed to his wounds the next morning.

James Garfield had been president just 4 months when Charles J. Guiteau shot him in a Washington, DC, train station on July 2, 1881. Garfield survived the initial wound but died 79 days later from complications related to his injuries and subsequent infection.

William McKinley was the third president to be assassinated in less than 4 decades when he was shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz at the Pan-American Exhibition in Buffalo, New York, on September 6, 1901. The president died 8 days later from gangrene infection.

Assailants severely wounded Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, but both survived.

Roosevelt was shot in the chest during his 1912 presidential election campaign in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on October 14, 1912. He refused medical attention until he delivered a speech in which he told the stunned crowd, "It takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose."

Reagan suffered a more serious wound after being shot in Washington, DC, on March 30, 1981. The bullet missed Reagan's heart by an inch. He recovered and was released from the hospital 12 days later.