One of the most prominent figures in U.S. politics died from brain cancer in his Hyannis Port (MA) home on Tuesday, August 26. He was 77 years old.  Edward Moore Kennedy (born 1932) was the ninth and youngest child of Joseph Patrick Kennedy and Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald. Below is a cut-out from the Kennedy family tree (click on the image to enlarge it).

The Kennedy family became very influential in U.S. politics during the 2oth century. Ted Kennedy’s father was the grandson of an Irish immigrant, and served as United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom. The height of the family’s political influence had probably been reached when John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the second oldest of the 9 siblings, became the 35th President of the United States in 1960.  Triumph and tragedy were never far from one another in the Kennedy family: John F. Kennedy and his younger brother Robert (who served as attorney general and later as senator) were both killed by assassins, and Ted Kennedy himself survived a plane crash in 1964, which caused permanent problems in back and neck. Eunice Mary Kennedy Shriver (born as the 5th child), who founded the Special Olympics, had just died two weeks before Edward Kennedy.

The story of the Kennedy family tree is truly remarkable.