CARLATA BRADLEY

On July 16, 1999, John F. Kennedy, Jr.; his wife, Carolyn
Bessette Kennedy (above) and her sister, Lauren Bessette,
died when the single-engine plane that Kennedy was piloting
crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near Martha’s Vineyard,
Massachusetts.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr., was born on November 25,
1960, just a few weeks after his father and namesake was
elected the 35th president of the United States.

President John F. Kennedy and son
JFK Jr.(‘John John’)

On July 14, 1913, Gerald R. Ford was born Leslie Lynch King, Jr.
in Omaha, Nebraska. His biological father left the family when
Ford was three years old. His mother’s second husband, Gerald
Ford, adopted the young boy and gave him his name.

The young Ford went on to become the first vice president to
assume office after a president resigned, after President
Richard M. Nixon (below) stepped down in 1974.

Richard Milhous Nixon
(January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994)

In Los Angeles, California, Senator John F. Kennedy of
Massachusetts was nominated for the presidency by the
Democratic Party Convention, defeating Senator Lyndon
B. Johnson of Texas. The next day, Johnson was named
Kennedy’s running mate by a unanimous vote of the
convention.

Senators Kennedy and Johnson during the 1960 campaign.

A Medal of Honor awarded to a Civil War general was
found inside a book at a church fundraising sale.

On this day in 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed into
law a measure calling for the awarding of a U.S. Army Medal
of Honor, in the name of Congress, “to such noncommissioned
officers and privates as shall most distinguish themselves by
their gallantry in action, and other soldier-like qualities during
the present insurrection.”

Abraham Lincoln
(February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865)