November 22

John F. Kennedy Memorial Day

John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his death in 1963.

After military service as commander of the Motor Torpedo Boats PT-109 and PT-59 during World War II in the South Pacific, Kennedy represented Massachusetts' 11th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953 as a Democrat. Thereafter, he served in the U.S. Senate from 1953 until 1960. Kennedy defeated Vice President and Republican candidate Richard Nixon in the 1960 U.S. presidential election. He was the youngest elected to the office, at the age of 43, the second-youngest President (after Theodore Roosevelt), and the first person born in the 20th century to serve as president. Kennedy is the only Catholic president, and is the only president to have won a Pulitzer Prize. Events during his presidency included the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the building of the Berlin Wall, the Space Race, the African-American Civil Rights Movement, and early stages of the Vietnam War.

Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas. Lee Harvey Oswald was charged with the crime, but he was shot and killed byJack Ruby two days later, before a trial could take place. The FBI and the Warren Commission officially concluded that Oswald was the lone assassin. However, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) concluded that those investigations were flawed and that Kennedy was probably assassinated as the result of a conspiracy. Kennedy ranks rather highly in public opinion ratings of U.S. presidents.

Births

Abigail Adams (née Smith; November 22 [O.S. November 11] 1744 – October 28, 1818) was the wife of John Adams, who was the second President of the United States, and the mother of John Quincy Adams, the sixth. She was the first Second Lady of the United States, and the second First Lady of the United States.

Adams is remembered for the many letters she wrote to her husband while he stayed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, during the Continental Congresses. John frequently sought the advice of Abigail on many matters, and their letters are filled with intellectual discussions on government and politics. The letters serve as eyewitness accounts of the American Revolutionary War home front.

Harley J. Earl (November 22, 1893 – April 10, 1969) was the initial designated head of Design at General Motors, later becoming Vice President, the first top executive ever appointed in Design of a major corporation in American history. He was an industrial designer and a pioneer of modern transportation design. A coachbuilder by trade, Earl pioneered the use of freeform sketching and hand sculpted clay models as automotive design techniques. He subsequently introduced the "concept car" as both a tool for the design process and a clever marketing device.

Earl's Buick Y-Job was the first concept car. He started "Project Opel", which eventually became the Chevrolet Corvette, and he authorized the introduction of the tailfin to automotive styling. During World War II, he was an active contributor to the Allies' research and development program in advancing the effectiveness of camouflage.

Howard Hoagland "Hoagy" Carmichael (November 22, 1899 – December 27, 1981) was an American composer, pianist, singer, actor, and bandleader. He is best known for composing the music for "Stardust", "Georgia on My Mind", "The Nearness of You", and "Heart and Soul", four of the most-recorded American songs of all time.

American composer and author Alec Wilder wrote of Carmichael in American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900–1950 that he was the "most talented, inventive, sophisticated and jazz-oriented" of the hundreds of writers composing pop songs in the first half of the 20th century.

Robert Francis Vaughn (born November 22, 1932) is an Academy Award-nominated American actor noted for stage, film and television work. His best-known U.S. television series roles include the suave spy Napoleon Solo in the 1960s The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and wealthy detective Harry Rule in the 1970s in The Protectors. His film roles include playing one of the title characters in The Magnificent Seven, Major Paul Kreuger in The Bridge at Remagen, and the voice of Proteus IV, the computer in Demon Seed.

As grifter and card sharp Albert Stroller in the BBC TV series Hustle, Vaughn appeared in all but one of the 48 episodes (of the eight series which ran in the UK between 2004 and 2012). Between January and February 2012, Vaughn played Milton Fanshaw in the long-running British soap operaCoronation Street, a new love interest for the character Sylvia Goodwin.

Terence Vance "Terry" Gilliam ( born 22 November 1940) is an American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. Gilliam has also directed several films, including Brazil (1985), The Adventures of Baron Munchausen(1988), The Fisher King (1991), 12 Monkeys (1995), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009). The only "Python" not born in Britain, he became a naturalized British citizen in 1968. In 2006 he formally renounced his American citizenship.

Roy William Thomas, Jr. (born November 22, 1940,) is an American comic book writer and editor, and Stan Lee's first successor as editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. He is possibly best known for introducing the pulp magazine hero Conan the Barbarian to American comics, with a series that added to the storyline of Robert E. Howard's character and helped launch a sword and sorcery trend in comics. Thomas is also known for his championing of Golden Age comic-book heroes — particularly the 1940s superhero team the Justice Society of America — and for lengthy writing stints on Marvel's X-Men and Avengers, and DC Comics' All-Star Squadron, among other titles. Thomas was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2011.