John Kennedy Jr. dies, July 16, 1999
The image of the three-year-old saluting his father’s coffin broke hearts worldwide. John Jr. became a symbol for the tragic history of the Kennedy family. He attended college at Brown and then went on to New York University’s School of Law. In 1988, People magazine named him “The Sexiest Man Alive.” Like his mother, he was the subject of intense media scrutiny. He was piloting a small plane when it crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off of Martha’s Vineyard. He was thirty-eight years old. Also killed were his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and her sister, Lauren.