This day in history: Happy birthday, Jackie Kennedy!

Nourhan SandoukTue, July 28, 2026 at 9:56 AM UTC

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Jacqueline Lee Bouvier, born in Southampton, New York in 1929. During her childhood, Jacqueline learned French, practiced ballet, and took horseback riding lessons.Her father, John, was a wealthy stockbroker on Wall Street whose family had come from France in the early 1800s.

In 1947, Jacqueline moved to Paris for her university studies, then moved back to George Washington University, where she earned a degree in French literature.

At that time Jacqueline worked as a photographer for the Washington Times Herald.

Through her work Jacqueline met John F. Kennedy, who was a congressman and soon to be elected senator from Massachusetts.Their meeting was arranged by a mutual friend, journalist Charles Bartlett, at a dinner party in Washington, DC.

“My brother really was smitten with her right from the very beginning when he first met her at dinner,” John’s younger brother Ted Kennedy told author Sarah Bradford in America’s Queen,

Two years later, after he became a U.S. senator, they got married.

In 1960 John announced that he was running for president, and Jacqueline initially traveled with her husband. However, after becoming pregnant, she had to stay at home but continued to be involved in the campaign.

John won the U.S. presidential election, and weeks later Jacqueline gave birth to a son, John F. Kennedy, Jr.

Despite her short time there, Jacqueline worked hard on making an impact on the role of first lady, the young first lady, 31 years old, Jacqueline hired Letitia Baldrige, to assist her as social secretary. Through Baldrige, Jacqueline announced that she intended to make the White House a showcase for America’s most talented and accomplished individuals, and she invited musicians, actors, and intellectuals.

She also created the Fine Arts Committee for the White House, and hired Lorraine Waxman Pearce as the first curator of the White House.

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Jacqueline created the White House Historical Association, a non-profit organization that works to preserve the history of the White House and make the information more accessible to everyone.

Jacqueline was also known for her beauty, fashion sense, and facility with languages.

In 1963 the death of her newborn son, Patrick Bouvier, Jacqueline accompanied her husband to Texas. During the campaigning president Kennedy was assassinated as she sat beside him. On her return to the capital, Jacqueline planned her husband’s funeral, using many of the details of Abraham Lincoln’s funeral a century earlier.

Jacqueline created the building of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum as a memorial to her husband, and carried on raising her young family.

In 1968she remarried Aristotle Onassis. When Onassis died in 1975, she said, “Aristotle Onassis rescued me at a moment when my life was engulfed with shadows…We lived through many beautiful experiences together…for which I will be eternally grateful.”

Jacqueline died in her sleep from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma at the age of 64 and was buried beside John F. Kennedy.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”