Kennedy curse

The Kennedy Curse is a series of unfortunate events that have happened to members of the Kennedy family. Some have called the continual misfortune of the Kennedy family a curse. Several members of the family who have died from unnatural causes, most notably brothers John and Robert, who were assassinated by gunshot in 1963 and 1968, and John F. Kennedy, Jr., who died in a plane crash with his wife and sister-in-law in 1999.

Chronology

Believers in the "curse" generally cite the following core events as evidence of the family's misfortunes:

• 1941 - Rosemary Kennedy was believed to be mentally retarded. Because of her increasingly violent and severe mood swings, she underwent a lobotomy. The surgery impaired her cognitive abilities even more and as a result, she remained institutionalized until her death in 2005.
• August 12, 1944 - Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., the eldest son of Joseph Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, dies in a mid-air aircraft explosion over the English Channel while flying a mission during World War II.
• September 10, 1944 - William Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington, husband of Kathleen Kennedy Cavendish, is killed in action by a sniper in Belgium while serving as a major in the Coldstream Guards.
• May 13, 1948 - Kathleen Kennedy Cavendish, Marchioness of Hartington, dies in a plane crash in France.
• 1955 - Jacqueline Kennedy suffers a miscarriage.
• August 23, 1956 - Jacqueline Kennedy gives birth to a stillborn daughter. (Although the daughter was unnamed and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery next to her parents with a marker reading "Daughter," later reports indicated that the Kennedys had intended to call her "Arabella Kennedy".)
• December 19, 1961 - Joseph P. Kennedy, the family patriarch, suffers a greatly disabling stroke which makes movement and communication extremely difficult lasting until his death in 1969.
• August 9, 1963 - Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, the second son of John and Jacqueline Kennedy, born six weeks premature, dies two days after his birth.
• November 22, 1963 - President John F. Kennedy assassinated in Dallas, Texas the same date, November 22, his great-grandfather had died.
• June 19, 1964 - Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy is involved in a plane crash in which one of his aides and the pilot were killed. He was pulled from the wreckage by fellow senator Birch E. Bayh II (D-Ind.) and spent weeks in a hospital recovering from a broken back, a punctured lung, broken ribs, and internal bleeding.
• June 5, 1968 - Robert F. Kennedy, brother to both John and Ted, is shot multiple times and killed in Los Angeles, immediately following his victory in the California Democratic presidential primary.
• July 18, 1969 - "Chappaquiddick incident": A car driven by Ted Kennedy goes off a bridge on Martha's Vineyard killing passenger Mary Jo Kopechne.
• February 23, 1972 - Joseph P. Kennedy II, son of Robert and Ethel, is on a Lufthansa jet over India that is hijacked by five Palestinians and flown to South Yemen.
• January 23, 1973 - Alexander Onassis, stepson of Jacqueline Kennedy, dies in a plane crash.
• November 17, 1973 - Edward Kennedy, Jr., loses his right leg due to bone cancer at the age of twelve.
• 1973 - Joseph P. Kennedy II, son of Robert and Ethel, is the driver in a car accident that leaves one passenger, Pam Kelley, permanently paralyzed.
• April 25, 1984 - David Kennedy, a son of Robert and Ethel, dies from a Demerol and cocaine overdose in a Palm Beach, Florida hotel room.
• November 19, 1988 - Christina Onassis, stepdaughter of Jacqueline Kennedy, dies in Argentina of drug abuse-related heart failure.
• January, 1994 - Jacqueline Kennedy is diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a type of cancer, and dies later that year.
• December 31 1997 - Michael Kennedy, son of Robert, dies in a skiing accident in Aspen, Colorado.
• July 16, 1999 - John F. Kennedy, Jr., his wife, Carolyn and sister-in-law Lauren died when their private plane Kennedy is piloting crashes into the Atlantic Ocean on a hazy evening en route from Essex County Airport in Fairfield, New Jersey to Martha's Vineyard.
• May 20, 2008 - Ted Kennedy, at the age of 76, is diagnosed with a brain tumor (Glioma) after being hospitalized for an unexplained seizure in Massachusetts.

Secondary events

Despite being in the news, these events are not considered to be part of the "curse" by all believers.

• November 26, 1950 - Edward Cavendish, 10th Duke of Devonshire, Kathleen Kennedy's father-in-law, had a heart attack and was treated by the suspected serial killer Dr John Bodkin Adams. He died.
• May 1, 1990 - John F. Kennedy Jr. fails his bar exam for the second time and was widely ridiculed in the tabloids.
• September 11, 1983 - Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is arrested in South Dakota for heroin possession.
• 1986 - Patrick J. Kennedy, a son of Senator Ted Kennedy, begins treatment for cocaine addiction.
• 1991 - William Kennedy Smith, son of Jean Kennedy, is accused of raping a woman in Palm Beach, Florida. He is tried and acquitted.
• August 12, 1999 - Anthony Radziwill, son of Lee Radziwill and nephew of John F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy, dies of cancer one month after his first cousin, John F. Kennedy Jr. perishes in a plane crash.
• June 7, 2002 - Michael Skakel, a nephew of Ethel Skakel Kennedy, is convicted in the 1975 murder of Martha Moxley, committed when he was a teenager.
• 2004 - William Kennedy Smith faces civil charges based on an alleged 1999 sexual assault; the charges are dismissed.
• May 4, 2006 - Patrick J. Kennedy is involved in a single-car accident in Washington DC. He has since entered treatment for addiction to prescription pain medication.
• 2006 - Ted Kennedy was aboard a plane which was struck by lightning and had to be diverted to New Haven, Connecticut. Senator Kennedy had just delivered the commencement address at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams and was on his way to his Cape Cod home when the plane was struck.