The Kennedy Curse

The Kennedy extended family has seen way more than its share of tragedies.

1940 - Joseph P. Kennedy forced to resign in disgrace as Ambassador to Britain after it came out that he was anti-Semitic and had tried to arrange a secret meeting with Adolf Hitler.

1941 - Rosemary Kennedy, older sister of JFK, was permanently incapacitated by a botched lobotomy at the age of 23 and had to be institutionalized.  She survived however until 2005 when she died of natural causes at the age of 86.

1944 - Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., brother of JFK, died in 1944 at the age of 29, when the payload on his bomber prematurely exploded

1944 - William Cavendish when he was killed in action in WWII in 1944, aged 26. He had been married only 4 months earlier to Katherine Kennedy.

1948 - Kathleen A. Kennedy Cavendish, sister of JFK, died in 1948 at the age of 28, in an airplane crash over France. Her companion Lord Peter Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, also died in the crash at the age of 37.

1955 - Jacqueline Kennedy has a miscarriage.

1956 - Arabella Kennedy, daughter of JFK and Jaqueline, born stillborn.

1961 - Joseph Kennedy, patriarch of the family, suffers a stroke that leaves him unable to speak

1962 - Marilyn Monroe, who reportedly had affairs with both JFK and RFK, committed suicide.  She was only 36.

1963 - Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, son of JFK and Jaqueline, died at the age of 2 days

1963 - John F. Kennedy, president assassinated in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963 at the age of 46.  Dallas police office J.D. Tippit was killed by Oswald after he shot JFK.

1963 - Lee Harvey Oswald, 24, assassin of JFK, was killed by Jack Ruby two days later.

1964 - Theodore "Ted" Kennedy survived a plane crash that killed the pilot.  He was severely injured and spent weeks recovering.

1964 - Mary Pinchot Meyer, who JFK had an affair with, was murdered on Oct. 12, 1964.  She may have tried to get JFK to take LSD, as part of a plan by Timothy Leary to avert world-wide nuclear war by introducing members of the Washington establishment to mind altering drugs.

1965 - Dorothy Kilgallen, journalist, and the only person to interview Jack Ruby out of earshot of the deputies, was found dead under suspicious circumstances.  Conspiracy theorists believe she was murdered.

1967 - Jack Ruby, killer of Lee Harvey Oswald, dies of lung cancer while awaiting trial.

1968 - David Kennedy, son of Robert F. Kennedy, nearly drowned while swimming in the Pacific Ocean. He was 12 at the time.

1968 - Robert F. Kennedy, brother of JFK, assassinated in Los Angeles at the age of 42

1969 - Ted Kennedy drove a car off a bridge in Chappaquiddick, Mass., killing passenger Mary Jo Kopechne (aged 29). He was 36 and married to Joan Kennedy at the time.

1973 - Alexander S. Onassis.  Son of Aristotle Onassis, 2nd husband of Jaqueline Kennedy, and her stepson.  He died at the age of 24 in Athens, Greece in a plane crash.

1973 - Joseph P. Kennedy II, son of Robert F. Kennedy, was driving a car that crashed, permanently paralyzing passenger Pam Kelley (girlfriend of brother David Kennedy).  She was about 16 at the time.

1973 - Ted Kennedy Jr, son of Ted Kennedy, had his right leg amputated because of bone cancer.

1975 - Martha Moxley, aged 15 was bludgeoned to death with a golf club.  The previous evening she had been in the company of Michael and Tommy Skakel (nephews of Robert F. Kennedy).

1975 - Caroline Bouvier Kennedy (daughter of JFK) then 17, was almost killed by a car bomb in London.

1983 - Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. arrested for heroin possession.

1984 - David Kennedy, son of Robert F. Kennedy, died of a drug overdose in Florida.  He was 28.

1986 - Patrick J. Kennedy, son of Ted Kennedy, spend time in a drug rehab clinic for cocaine addiction

1988 - Christina Onassis, stepdaughter of Jacqueline Kennedy, dies of drug abuse related heart failure.

1991 - William Kennedy Smith (son of Jean Kennedy Smith), charged with rape, later acquitted.

1994 - Joseph P. Kennedy II divorced Sheila Rauch and was granted an annulment in secret by the Vatican, even though they had been married for 12 years and had twin boys.  She didn't discover it until 1996, and wrote a book lambasting the Vatican.  The annulment was reversed in 2005.

1994 - Jaqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, died in 1994 at the age of 64 of cancer

1997 - Michael Kennedy, son of Robert F Kennedy, killed in a skiing accident at Aspen, Colorado at the age of 39.  He had been having an affair with his babysitter since she was 14, although other sources claim that he waited until she was 16 to bed her.

1997 - June Verrochi, mother of the babysitter Michael Kennedy had been having an affair with, attempts suicide.

1999 - JFK Jr., son of JFK and Jaqueline, died in a plane crash with his wife Carolyn Bessette (aged 33), and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette (aged 35), in 1999 at the age of 38.  It was almost exactly 30 years, and in the same area, where his uncle drove his car off a bridge that killed the passenger. [For conspiracy theorists, he was planning on running for a Senate seat in New York before he died.  Hillary Clinton won the seat in November 2000.]

2002 - Michael Skakel, nephew of Robert F. Kennedy, was finally convicted of the murder of 15-year old Martha Moxley in 1975. His cousin, attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr, insisted that he was innocent.

2003 - Kara Kennedy, daughter of Ted Kennedy, is treated for lung cancer.

2005 - Joan Kennedy, first wife of Ted Kennedy, is treated for breast cancer.  She become an alcoholic after the Chappaquiddick incident.

2006 - Patrick Kennedy, son of Ted Kennedy, was involved in a car crash while intoxicated, that thankfully killed no one.

2006 - Ted Kennedy was aboard a plane that was struck by lightning, but no one was injured.

2009 - Ted Kennedy died of a brain tumor at the age of 77.

2011 - Kara Anne Kennedy, daughter of Ted Kennedy, died of a heart attack at a health club at the age of 51.

2012 - Mary Richardson Kennedy, wife of Robert F. Kennedy Jr, hanged herself at her mansion in New York. She was 52.