Most Cursed Family or Greatest Political Dynasty? | Kennedy Family Tree

Most Cursed Family or Greatest Political Dynasty? | Kennedy Family Tree

hi this is Matt Baker today I’m going to show you the family tree of the kennedies the most prominent political family in the United States they are in fact so prominent that they have often been dubbed America’s royal family that’s because this one family including spouses has produced One mayor three state legislators one state senator one lieutenant governor two Governors five ambassadors three members of the House of Representatives three Senators one attorney general one housing secretary one candidate for vice president four candidates for president and of course one actual president and one first lady on top of this two kennedies have held Noble titles in other countries however on the flip side this family has also said to be cursed at least 17 members have met with some sort of unexpected tra tragic death including two major assassinations and several plane crashes now we have previously made a video about the kennedies but since we have a Kennedy running for president again this year Robert F Kennedy Jr I thought it would be a good time to update and expand the chart but before we get into it I want to tell you about a few books related to today’s topic just prior to his assassination Bobby Kennedy senior wrote a book called 13 days which describes the moment during his brother’s presidency when the US almost ended up in a full-scale nuclear war then there’s this more recent book what the truth sounds like which is about Bobby Kennedy’s meeting with civil rights activist James Baldwin in 1963 and how what was discussed then is still relevant today there’s also this one about the race to the moon and this one about the rise and fall of the Secret Service now what if I told you that you could get ACC access to the main ideas of all four of these books as well as summaries for an additional 6,500 books with just a few clicks well it’s possible thanks to an app called blinkist blinkist allows you to either read or listen to the main ideas of popular books in less than 30 minutes and sometimes even in less than 15 personally I use blankets to learn more about a book before I decide whether or not I want to go out and purchase it if if this sounds interesting to you now is the perfect time to give blinkist a try not only can you get a free 7-Day trial if you take advantage of the special Memorial Day promotion you will also get a whopping 70% off their annual premium plan so if you want to accelerate your learning and have fun doing it get blink Us Now by clicking the link in the description or pin comment or by scanning the QR code on screen now okay back to the Kennedy as you probably know the Kennedy family has their roots in Ireland where their surname was originally okenia in fact around 900 years ago the okenia were Kings of a small Kingdom called ormont however by the 1800s they had become everyday folk in 1849 during the height of the Great Potato Famine a certain Pat Kennedy migrated to the US alongside 1.5 million of his countrymen Pat settled in Boston and it was there that his son PJ Kennedy was born PJ went on to become a successful businessman and was also the first person in the Kennedy family to become a politician serving as both a Massachusetts state legislator and state senator around the same time another child of Irish immigrants named John F Fitzgerald also entered politics eventually becoming the mayor of Boston in 1914 his daughter R married PJ’s son Joseph and thus the two political families were United as one it was with this generation that the family’s fortunes really took off which is why Joseph and Rose are considered to be the patriarch and matriarch of the Kennedy family you see Joseph was a very shrewd investor and while most people lost big when the stock market crashed in 1929 Joseph made millions in fact he eventually became a billionaire in today’s money at and ended up becoming one of the 15 richest men in America he was also good friends with President Franklin D Roosevelt and was appointed by FDR as the first chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission which was formed in order to prevent another stock market crash later FDR appointed him as the US ambassador to the United Kingdom just before World War II while Joseph rubbed shoulders with those in the world of finance and politics Rose focused on raising their nine children and on being involved with various Charities something for which she was recognized for in 1951 when she received a rare Noble title from the pope let me now go through each of the nine Kennedy children and tell you a bit about each one the eldest was named after his father and was thus known as Joseph P Kennedy Jr when he was born his maternal grandfather who was then mayor of Boston declared that little Joseph Would One Day become the president of the United States obviously he was close with that prediction but not quite spoton you see even though Joe Jr was indeed groomed to go into politics he ended up dying in World War II when his airplane’s payload exploded early prior to the war he had been dating model athalia ponel and they were perhaps even engaged which brings me to the Kennedy curse Jo Jo junr was the first among many kennedies and people connected to the kennedies to die an early tragic death so take note that as we go I’ll be adding this symbol to each victim of the curse strangely 30 years after Joe’s death his former fiance fell victim to the curse as well being murdered in front of her home in 1974 next up is the most famous Kennedy of all John F Kennedy known as JFK for short the F stands for Fitzgerald his mother’s maiden surname after his brother Joe died his father’s Ambitions fell to him he had also served during the war and in fact had become a bit of a hero because of an incident in the Pacific where he ended up saving his crew after their boat the PT 109 was sunk by a Japanese Destroyer this helped boost his image at home and he went on to become first of all a member of the US House of Representatives in 194 7 and then a senator in 1953 before eventually winning the presidential race in 1960 at that point he became the first ever Catholic President in fact until Joe Biden he was the only Catholic President JFK was also just 43 years old when he became president which makes him the second youngest president ever Teddy Roosevelt was actually the youngest at 42 several important things happened during his presid presidency such as the Bay of Pigs invasion the Cuban Missile Crisis and the March on Washington but unfortunately for him most people remember his presidency more for how it ended with him being assassinated during a motorcade in Dallas Texas an event that has sparked many conspiracy theories some of which still persist to this day now while jeffk is generally thought of as having been a good president his wife Jackie is almost universally considered to have been one of the best first ladies in addition to being a major style icon she was responsible for a major restoration of the White House and for ensuring its preservation in the future she too came from a wealthy family her father having been a successful stock broker however he had a sister known as Big Eddie Jackie’s Aunt who is remembered today not for her initial wealth but for her eventual poverty in 1923 she and her husband bought a mansion called great Gardens and when they separated 8 years later she got to keep it but she had no income of her own so over the decades it became derel in an extreme way in the 1950s her daughter known as little Eddie came to live with her and in the 1970s their rundown home and the women’s eccentric ways were featured in a documentary called great Gardens which to this day is considered to be one of the best do documentaries ever made but back to Jackie Kennedy 5 years after her husband’s death she married a Greek billionaire named Aristotle anassis who at the time was one of the richest men in the world it is for this reason that the former first lady became known as Jackie O JFK and Jackie O had two main children Caroline and JFK Jr however they also had a stillborn baby named Arabella and an infant son named Patrick who died after just 2 days they are considered victims of the curse as well Caroline once dated the brother of the current Queen Camila of the UK however she eventually married a Jewish man named Edwin schlosberg with whom she had three children currently Caroline serves as the US ambassador to Australia and previously she was the ambassador to Japan as a boy John Jr was nicknamed John John he was 3 days short of 3 years old old when his father was assassinated and he’s the boy in this famous photo saluting his father’s casket at the funeral as a man John Jr was known as quite the heartthrob he dated many famous women including Madonna Brook Shields Cindy Crawford and Sarah Jessica Parker however he eventually married Carolyn besset but 3 years later they both died in a plane crash becoming two more victims of the Kennedy curse therefore JFK currently has only five surviving descendants one daughter two granddaughters one grandson and one great-grandson currently Jack is one to watch as he is widely considered to eventually go into politics okay let’s now look at the first of JFK’s Five Sisters rosemary Rosemary’s story is a sad one as a teen and young adult Rosemary suffered from seizures and violent outburst worried that she would embarrass the family her father secretly arranged for her to have a labotomy in 1941 without telling his wife or other children the labotomy was a disaster and left her with the mental capacity of a 2-year-old at this point she was institutionalized and for the next 20 years virtually no one knew what had happened to her not even her siblings however when JFK’s father had a stroke in 1961 one that left him unable to speak or walk the siblings finally came to know the truth her condition was made public the next year but the fact that it had been caused by a botched labotomy didn’t become public until 1987 here’s a photo of her around that time with one of her nephews Rosemary died in 2005 at the age of 86 next up is Kathleen Kennedy better known as kick she served with the Red Cross in England during World War II which is where she met the nobleman and Army Major William Cavendish he was the heir to the dukedom of devenshire and hence held the courtesy title Marcus of Hardington the pair married in 1944 and hence at that point she obtained the title maress however just 3 months after the wedding William was shot and killed by a German sniper during the liberation of Belgium and then about 4 years after that she herself died in a plane crash thus we have two more victims of the Kennedy curse which brings us to Unice Kennedy probably the most well-known of the Kennedy sisters she married Sergeant Shriver who served under JFK as the very first director of the peace courp and under LBJ as the US ambassador to France then in 1972 he was on the presidential ticket as George McGovern’s running mate they of course lost that year to Richard Nixon Unice is best known for her charity work focused on helping those with intellectual disabilities which was inspired in part by her sister Rosemary she founded the Special Olympics which is currently led by her son Timothy her other sons are Bobby who became the mayor of Santa Monica Mark who served as a state legislator and Anthony who started the charity best buddies however her most well-known child is her daughter Maria who is also known for her charity work and who married the famous actor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2003 he was elected governor of California and thus Maria became the first lady of California together the couple have four children including Katherine who is married to the actor Chris Pratt the sixth child of Joseph and Rose Kennedy was Patricia better known as Pat she is yet another example of a Kennedy marrying a famous actor although my younger viewers might not know him Peter Lawford was a member of the 1940s Rat Pack which also included Frank cantra Sammy Davis Jr among others the couple had four children most of whom kept a fairly low profile we now come to JFK’s younger brother Robert F Kennedy also known as Bobby he too served as a US senator and then during his brother’s presidency he was appointed as us attorney general one of the top cabinet positions in 1968 5 years after his brother’s assassination he too decided to run for president he might even have been Victorious but on the night he won the California primary and just one month after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr he too was assassinated This Time by a Palestinian who shot Bobby Kennedy because of Kennedy’s support for Israel so yeah if you thought the Palestine Israel conflict only became became a big thing last year you’d be wrong now although Kennedy died at the young age of 42 he and his wife ethol produced 11 children ethol I should mention is currently The Only Living member of this generation of the kenned family as of 2024 she’s 96 years old throughout her long life she’s had to witness nine people from her branch of the tree die from unexpected causes first there were her parents who died in a plane crash in 1955 then of course there was her husband’s assassination in 1968 this was followed by her son David’s overdose in 1984 and her son Michael’s death in a skiing accident in 1997 there was also the suicide of her daughter-in-law Mary in 2012 and more recently the overdose of her granddaughter sersa and the drowning deaths of her granddaughter Ma and great grand on Gideon but in addition to having the most victims of the Kennedy curse this branch of the tree also produced the most politicians Bobby and Ethel’s eldest Kathleen served as the lieutenant governor of Maryland and their son Joseph P Kennedy II named after his grandfather served as a congressman as did Joe Kennedy III although he now serves as the US Special Envoy to Northern Ireland Mary krey didn’t become a politician but she married one Andrew Kom who during their marriage was the US Secretary for Housing and Urban Development and then after their divorce was the governor of New York he’s the brother of former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo and then of course there’s Robert F Kennedy Jr who’s the Kennedy family member who’s most in the news these days that’s because he’s currently running for president as an independent against both Biden and Trump even though most of the members of the Kennedy family are dedicated Democrats and are therefore supporting Biden previous to this Bobby Jr was mostly known for being a conspiracy theorist and for promoting unorthodox ideas such as that vaccines cause autism that HIV does not cause AIDS that the covid restrictions were worse than the Holocaust and that 5G is dangerous to our brains his running mate Nicole Shanahan who until recently was the wife of Google C co-founder Sergey Brin RFK Jr has been married three times and has six children his current wife is actress Sheryl Hines best known for playing Larry David’s wife on kerb Your Enthusiasm okay two more branches of the tree left next is Jean Kennedy who married Steven Smith who was a political strategist for both JFK and RFK during the Clinton years Jean served as the ambassador to Ireland and was involved in the peace process there she and her husband had four children last up is Ted Kennedy he’s the only one of the four Kennedy sons who lived to old age but he had several close calls first less than a year after the JFK assassination he was in a plane crash that killed both the pilot and another passenger then less than year after the RFK assassination he accidentally drove a car off a bridge and into the water he managed to swim to shore safely but his female passenger did not which because of the lack of clarity surrounding the event has led to all sorts of speculation and is very likely the reason why Ted never became president at the time of both of these incidents Ted Kennedy was a US senator a position he held for almost 47 years he was married twice first to Joan Bennett the mother of his three children and second to Victoria re Who currently serves as the US ambassador to Austria his eldest daughter Cara was yet another victim of the Kennedy curse she died of a heart attack at age 51 while doing her daily workout his second born Ted Kennedy Jr narrowly escaped the curse as a child he was diagnosed with cancer and had to get his leg amputated he survived though and today uses a prosthetic leg going on to serve as a state St Senator finally there’s Patrick J Kennedy II who is named after his great-grandfather he was elected to the House of Representatives in 1995 at the age of 27 making him the first gen AER to serve in Congress all right so that was a look at all of the major official members of the Kennedy family however before I go I want to mention a few people who were unofficially connected to the family you see many of the Kennedy men were known to have had extra marital affairs with some pretty high-profile women the most famous of which was Marilyn Monroe who is rumored to have been lovers with both President Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy JFK also had affairs with a Nazi spy a woman connected to the mafia several White House staff members and this woman who was mysteriously murdered one year after he was assassinated as for Bobby he mostly had affairs with famous singers and actresses but it is rumored that he possibly also had one with Jackie O in the Years following JFK’s assassination where did they learn this behavior from well probably from their father he was known to be a philanderer as well having had affairs with silent movie stars Gloria Swanson and marinaa Dietrich who then later had an affair with President Kennedy okay so that was a look at the family tree of the kennedies let let me know in the comments how you think RFK Jr will do in November and which younger kennedies you think we might see on the ballot in the future and don’t forget to check out blinkist and take advantage of that great 70% off offer the link is in the description and pinned comment thanks for watching [Music] [Music]

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Kennedy Family Tree
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CREDITS:
Charts & Narration by Matt Baker
Animation by Syawish Rehman
Audio editing by Ali Shahwaiz
Intro music: “Lord of the Land” by Kevin MacLeod and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution license 4.0. Available from http://incompetech.com