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Timeline: Senate Icon
Feb. 22, 1932
The 1950s
May 1951: Kennedy is caught cheating on an exam at Harvard and leaves school. He enlists in the Army, serves for the next 16 months, and later re-enrolls at Harvard.
June 1954: Kennedy graduates from Harvard and enrolls at the University of Virginia Law School. He graduates in 1959.
Nov. 29, 1958: Kennedy marries Virginia Joan Bennett.
1962
March: Resigns as assistant district attorney in Suffolk County, Mass., and announces his candidacy for his brother John's unexpired Senate term.
Nov. 6: Elected as U.S. Senator from Massachusetts.
Nov. 22 1963
June 1964
Nov. 3, 1964
March 1968
June 5, 1968
July 18, 1969
July 25, 1969
The 1970s
November 1979: Kennedy announces his candidacy in the 1980 presidential election.
The 1980s
January-August 1980: Kennedy wins Democratic primaries in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, California, New Mexico, Rhode Island, South Dakota, and New Jersey. The rest go to the incumbent, President Jimmy Carter.
August 1980: In an emotional speech to the Democratic National Convention, Kennedy withdraws his bid for the presidency.
Dec. 1982: Kennedy announces he will not run for president in 1984. After 24 years of marriage, he divorces his wife, Joan.
Dec. 19, 1985: Kennedy announces he will not run for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination.
March 1991
A woman accuses Kennedy's nephew, William Kennedy Smith, of raping her at the family's Palm Beach, Fla., estate. He is later acquitted of the charge.
June 11, 1991
A conservative political group files an ethics complaint against Kennedy, alleging that he violated Senate rules by his actions relating to the alleged rape. Kennedy raised questions when he left Palm Beach, Fla., without speaking to police, who had made attempts to contact him. Senate Ethics Committee dismisses the complaint on June 19.
July 11, 1991
Oct. 25, 1991
September 1992
July 1992
Oct. 13, 1994
Jan. 4, 1995
Aug. 21, 1996
July 1999
Feb. 10, 2000
January 2002
April 5, 2004
May 4, 2006
November 2006
2007
Oct. 12: Kennedy has surgery in Boston to clear a partially blocked artery in his neck.
Jan. 28, 2008
May - June 2008
On May 17, Kennedy suffers a seizure at his Cape Cod home.
Doctors diagnose the senator with a cancerous brain tumor on May 20. He undergoes brain surgery on June 2.
Jan. 20, 2009
July 30, 2009
Kennedy is one of 16 people selected by President Obama for the 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country's highest civilian honor. In a statement, the senator said, "I am profoundly grateful to President Obama for this extraordinary honor. My life has been committed to the ideal of public service which President Kennedy wanted the Medal of Freedom to represent. To receive it from another President who prizes that same ideal of service and inspires so many to serve is a great privilege that moves me deeply."
Aug. 25, 2009
Kennedy, the liberal lion of the Senate and haunted bearer of the Camelot torch after two of his brothers fell to assassins' bullets, died at his home in Hyannis Port after battling a brain tumor. He was 77