John, Robert, and Ted Kennedy at their home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. Both John and Robert were later assassinated—the latter's death particularly devastated Ted, as he was closer to him than any other member of the Kennedy family.
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"Teddy" Kennedy climbs a palm tree on the grounds of the Kennedy family home in Palm Beach, Florida.
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The Kennedy clan sailing with their mother, Rose, seated second from left. Ted sits at the front of the boat and in the background are his brothers and sisters Jean, Joe Jr., Robert, Patricia, and Eunice. Joe Jr. died soon after while overseas in World War II.
At Harvard, Kennedy played offensive and defensive end on the freshman football team, but was expelled in 1951 for cheating on a Spanish exam. He later reapplied to Harvard and suited up on the field again, catching the attention of Green Bay Packers head coach Lisle Blackbourn. He turned down the bid because he wanted to "go into another contact sport-politics."
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The Kennedy brothers attend the annual Gridiron Club dinner in Washington, D.C. in 1958. John F. Kennedy was already a senator, while Edward was a student at the University of Virginia, and Robert was chief counsel to the Senate Rackets Committee.
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Looking dapper in his coattails, Kennedy and his blushing bride emerge from their wedding at St. Joseph Catholic Church in New York on November 29, 1958. Kennedy and Virginia Joan Bennett met just one year earlier and eventually divorced in 1982.
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Ted brandishes a campaign sign for his brother John at the 1960 Democratic National Convention. After John became president, Ted won a 1962 U.S. Senate special election to fill his empty seat. He won more than 55 percent of the vote and became the third-longest-serving senator of all time.
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Ted and his wife, Joan, had three children: Kara Anne, Edward Jr., and Patrick. Kara and Ed Jr. are pictured here with their parents in November of 1962. By the mid-1960s, Ted and Joan's relationship became strained.
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Ted and Robert Kennedy stand behind Jacqueline and John F. Kennedy's two children, Caroline and John Jr., three days after the president's assassination. John Jr., whose birthday was November 25, the day of the funeral, salutes his father's casket as it passes.
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On June 19, 1964, Ted's private plane crashed in an apple orchard in Southampton, Massachusetts. The pilot and one of Kennedy's aides were killed and the senator spent months in the hospital after sustaining a severe back injury, punctured lung, broken ribs, and internal bleeding. His extended stay at the hospital prompted his lifelong crusade for health-care reform.
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Ted escorts his sister-in-law, Ethel, in St. Patrick's Cathedral following the assassination of her husband, Robert F. Kennedy, on June 8, 1968. Robert was shot the night he won the Democratic primary in his presidential campaign and died the next day. Remembering Ted at his brother's hospital bedside, Kennedy aide Frank Mankiewicz said, "I have never, ever, nor do I expect ever, to see a face more in grief."
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Kennedy and his wife, Joan, leave a Massachusetts courthouse on July 25, 1969, after pleading guilty to fleeing the scene of a fatal accident. Deemed the Chappaquiddick incident, Kennedy and a woman named Mary Jo Kopechne were leaving a party at Martha's Vineyard the week before, when Kennedy drove his Oldsmobile off Dike Bridge into Poucha Pond, killing Kopechne. Kennedy left the scene and denied being under the influence of alcohol or any immoral conduct between himself and Kopechne. He was sentenced to two months in jail, which were suspended.
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Enjoying a day with his son, Patrick, and niece, Rory, Ted Kennedy rides a rollercoaster at Riverside Park in New York in 1976. That year-when Jimmy Carter was elected president-began what were considered Kennedy's worst political years. Problems on the home front persisted, too, and Kennedy and his wife Joan would separate a year later.
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Kennedy applies suntan lotion to the back of Sen. John Tunney and Rep. William Green adjusts his son Billy's life jacket before embarking on a raft run on the Colorado River on July 8, 1973. Ted's love for boating would later become a talking point for the country: European paparazzi photographed the senator having sex on a motorboat in 1989.
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A young Senator Kennedy attends the Democratic National Convention.
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After the Chappaquiddick incident, doubts lingered about the accuracy of Kennedy's account of the accident, significantly damaging his chances of ever becoming president. As a result, Kennedy only ran once, in 1980. Speaking to the Democratic National Convention delegates in Los Angeles, he called for America to "send a real Democrat to the White House."
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John F. Kennedy Jr. at his graduation from Brown University on June 4, 1983. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and sister Caroline Kennedy, look on.
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Ted Kennedy walked his niece, Caroline, down the aisle at her wedding to exhibit designer Edwin Schlossberg ceremony on July 19, 1986.
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Kennedy meets an unidentified young refugee in the Tuki-Baab famine refugee camp during a visit to Eastern Sudan in December, 1984. Many of the refugees had walked for a week to reach the camp from Eritrea. Kennedy toured a number of refugee camps in the African drought area.
Robert Dear / AP Photo
Kennedy in June 1987 outside his Capitol Hill office in Washington, D.C. It was that year Kennedy's heated rhetoric and criticism of the Reagan presidency led the Senate to reject the nomination of Robert Bork as an Associate Justice to the Supreme Court, ushering in a new age of intense political discussion over judicial appointments.
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Kennedy lends his support-and a laugh-to then-presidential hopeful, Barack Obama, during a rally for Obama at American University in January 2008. Kennedy endorsed Obama during the nominations, despite protestations from the Clinton camp, providing a huge boost to his campaign.
Evan Vucci / AP Photo
After checking out of the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston on May 21, 2008, Kennedy and his wife Victoria go for a stroll at the Kennedy family's compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. Sadly, the day before, Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor that he struggled with until his death.
Steven Senne / AP Photo
