The Kennedy tragedies,[1][2][3] commonly known as the Kennedy curse, is a term sometimes used to describe a series of events involving members of the Kennedy family.[3][4][5][6][7][8] The notion of a curse is superstitious and was created and fostered by the news media.[9][10][11]
Chronology
Believers in the curse generally cite the following events as evidence of the family's misfortunes:
1941—Rosemary Kennedy was often believed to have been mentally challenged. Some sources have claimed she was suffering from mental illness, such as depression and schizophrenia. Because of her increasingly violent and severe mood swings, her father, Joe, Sr., arranged in secret for her to undergo a lobotomy. The lobotomy instead further impaired her cognitive abilities, and as a result, Rosemary remained institutionalized until her death in 2005.[4][5][6][12][13]
August 23, 1956—Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy gave birth to a stillborn daughter.[6] Although she is buried at Arlington National Cemetery next to her parents with a marker reading "Daughter", her parents had intended to name her "Arabella".[14]
June 19, 1964—U.S. SenatorEdward M. "Ted" Kennedy was involved in a plane crash in which one of his aides and the pilot were killed. He was pulled from the wreckage by fellow senator Birch E. Bayh II and spent weeks in a hospital recovering from a broken back, a punctured lung, broken ribs, and internal bleeding.[4][5][13][15]
July 18, 1969—In the Chappaquiddick incident, Ted Kennedy accidentally drove his car off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, fatally trapping his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, inside.[4][5][6][7][13] In his July 25 televised statement, Kennedy stated that on the night of the incident he wondered "whether some awful curse did actually hang over all the Kennedys."[16][17]
August 13, 1973—Joseph P. Kennedy II was the driver of a car which crashed and left his passenger, Pam Kelley, paralyzed.[4][6][12]
November 17, 1973 - Ted Kennedy, Jr. had his right leg amputated because of bone cancer.
October 30, 1975 - Martha Moxley, a 15 year old Greenwich, Connecticut resident, was bludgeoned to death with a golf club. In 2002, Michael Skakel, nephew of Ethel Kennedy, was convicted of felony murder for the crime. His conviction was reversed in 2013.[18]
April 1, 1991—William Kennedy Smith was arrested and charged with the rape of a young woman at the Kennedy estate in Palm Beach, Florida. The subsequent trial attracted extensive media coverage.[19] Smith was acquitted.[1][3][4][12]
September 16, 2011—Kara Kennedy Allen died of a heart attack while exercising in a Washington, D.C. health club. Kennedy had reportedly suffered from lung cancer nine years earlier, but she had recovered after the removal of part of her right lung.[20][21]
July 13, 2012 - Kerry Kennedy sideswiped a tractor trailer on Interstate 684 while under the influence of zolpidem, which Kennedy claimed to have mistaken for her daily thyroid medication.[23] She was acquitted on all charges on February 28, 2014.[24]
