His short term was marked by tensions with the Soviets and support of the space program.

At 43, he was the youngest man ever elected president of the United States. Everything about John F. Kennedy seemed young and hip — his thick hair, his cool sunglasses, his stylish wife and two small children, his love of touch football games.

Even the name he gave his presidency, the New Frontier, told Americans to buckle up for an adventure. Tragically, though, his term lasted just 1,036 days, ended by an assassin’s bullet in November 1963.

As the world moved on, JFK became fixed in time, his youthful image frozen in people’s memories as well as in our history books. So it seems strange to say it, but Monday would be JFK’s 100th birthday.

Life and times

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born into a large, Irish Catholic family in Brookline, Massachusetts, on May 29, 1917. He was bookish and sickly as a boy. After Harvard University, he joined the Navy during World War II. When his patrol boat was sunk by the Japanese in August 1943, he was badly injured but became a war hero by saving 10 of his crew.

Kennedy’s father had planned for his oldest son, Joe, to enter politics and run for president one day. JFK wanted to be a writer or teacher. But when Joe died in the war, JFK was expected to fill his brother’s shoes. He did, first by getting elected to the House of Representatives, then the Senate and then the presidency in 1960.

The 1960s were a time of great tension in the world called the Cold War. Kennedy’s administration backed a failed attempt to overthrow Cuban President Fidel Castro. The next year, the United States got the Soviet Union to pull back from putting nuclear missiles in Cuba, from where they could hit the United States.

Kennedy ramped up U.S. involvement in Vietnam by sending military advisers and aid. Elsewhere, the Peace Corps he created sent thousands of Americans to help developing nations.

At home, he boosted the nation’s space program and set a goal of safely landing a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s (which did happen, in 1969). And he advanced the cause of civil rights, though the major civil rights laws were signed by his successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson, in 1964 and 1965. One thing Kennedy’s team did do to fight discrimination was force the Washington Redskins to end its ban on signing black football players.

JFK’s legacy

The president and his wife were great supporters of the arts. Plans were underway to build the National Cultural Center in Washington when JFK was killed. Two months later, Johnson renamed the center for Kennedy.

Jackie Kennedy wanted her husband remembered as a great president. She compared his presidency to Camelot, the mythical court of King Arthur. The musical “Camelot” ran on Broadway for two years while JFK was in the White House. Kennedy said her husband liked the concluding line: “Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot.”