Ted Kennedy, Liberal Lion of US Politics -- Dead
Senator Edward Kennedy, who died Tuesday, aged 77, was the liberal lion of US politics, a towering, controversial figure whose death ends an era when his family appeared born to rule.
Kennedy in many ways epitomized the wealthy, Ivy League-educated elite of the United States, a status detractors said enabled him to dodge fallout from scandals in his personal life.
Yet he also suffered extraordinary tragedy, with the assassinations of president John F. Kennedy in November 1963 and his other elder brother, the senator and former attorney general Robert Kennedy, in June 1968.
By the end of his life, following nearly five decades as a Democratic senator, Kennedy had won huge admiration for his dedication and his defiance of the brain cancer that ultimately killed him.
Edward Moore Kennedy, best known as Ted Kennedy, was born February 22, 1932, into the strongly Roman Catholic, Irish-American clan headed by banker Joseph Kennedy and his wife, Rose.
The Youngest of nine children, Kennedy attended Harvard University. He was expelled for cheating in an exam, but returned to earn both a degree and fame for his American football skills.
Told by the head coach of the Green Bay Packers that he might have a future as a professional football player, Kennedy quipped that he would instead enter law school then play "another contact sport: politics."
He did just that....
