On this day – January 2, 1960 –  appearing before the press in Washington, DC in the Senate Caucus Room – Senator  John Fitzgerald Kennedy of Massachusetts – announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination. Despite his youth and being seen by some as lacking experience in foreign affairs as well as his Catholic faith, the 43-year-old Kennedy captured the Democratic nomination besting a run by Texas Senator Lyndon Baines Johnson who he later chose as his running mate.

By election day – pollsters were declaring the election a toss-up but on November 8, 1960, John F. Kennedy was elected president over Richard M. Nixon in one of the closest elections in U.S. history.  John Fitzgerald Kennedy – elected when for the first time television became the dominant source of information for voters -was the youngest man ever elected president, the only Catholic and the first president born in the twentieth century.

Read, see and hear more here at the John F. Kennedy Library site.