July 16, 1999: The Death of John F. Kennedy Jr.

July 16, 1999: John F. Kennedy Jr., son of the 35th President of the United States, and, fairly or not, heir to so many Americans' dreams, dies in a plane crash of the coast of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. He was 38 years old. Lost along with him are his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, 36; and her sister, Lauren Bessette, 34.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr. was born on November 25, 1960, in Washington, D.C., 17 days after his father was elected President. He and his sister, Caroline, 3 years older, became the first children to live in the White House since those of Theodore Roosevelt, over half a century earlier. Most Presidents are in their 50s or older, but JFK was 43, the youngest ever elected, and only TR ever took office younger; while his mother, formerly Jacqueline Bouvier, at 31, was the youngest First Lady since Frances Cleveland in the 1880s.

At one point, Jackie could be heard yelling at him, as a toddler, "John! John!" The media misunderstood this, and began calling him "John-John," a nickname that stuck with him for life, one he didn't like. As an adult, he always referred to himself as simply "John Kennedy," a common enough name without the middle initial that gave it away.

When interviewed by Oprah Winfrey in 1996, he said he didn't remember the picture of himself dancing with Caroline in the Oval Office while their father clapped along, or the picture of himself playing under the desk while his father worked, both taken mere days before JFK's assassination. He also said he didn't remember the salute he gave as his father's casket passed by during the funeral procession, on his 3rd birthday, November 25, 1963. "I remember he used to call me 'Sam,'" he said, "and I didn't like that. I said, 'My name's not Sam, it's John.' And he said, 'Okay, Sam.'"

In the one and only interview she gave after the assassination, to William Manchester a few days later, Jackie mentioned something a bit off-color: Once, JFK said good night to his son, and John said, "Good night, poo-poo-head!" and ran off. And JFK, laughing, said, "Come back here! You can't call the President of the United States a poo-poo-head!" If only he could have known what every President since him has been called, by people considerably older.

Jackie took John and Caroline back to New York. After marrying Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis, they divided their time between Jackie's apartment on 5th Avenue and Ari's private island, Skorpios. Jackie took them to the 1969 World Series at Shea Stadium.

He attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, which was attended by both Presidents George Bush -- but not his father, who had gone to Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, Connecticut. Unlike his father, his grandfather and his 3 uncles, all Harvard men, he attended Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, which would later be attended by his uncle Ted's son, Patrick. In 1988, he gave a speech at the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta, and it was well-received enough that people began to believe a political career was in his future.

He then attended New York University School of Law, but needed 3 tries to pass the New York State bar exam. He became a prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, lived in the Tribeca neighborhood, and rode a bicycle to work, even though the family fortune meant that he could have afforded a limousine.

Like his mother and his sister, he guarded his privacy intensely, and it was difficult to confirm stories about who America's most eligible bachelor was dating. Apparently, like his father and grandfather before him, he had a thing for actresses, including dating Brooke Shields, Sarah Jessica Parker, and, for 4 years, Daryl Hannah.

On September 21, 1996, a few weeks after founding George, a political magazine named after George Washington and aimed at younger readers, he married Carolyn Bessette, who worked in New York's fashion industry. This took many people by surprise: Not only was she not famous in her own right, but the general public didn't even know they were dating.

It was still believed that he would run for political office, as a stepping-stone to becoming President like his father. With the defeat of Governor Mario Cuomo -- whose son Andrew would one day be Governor, and had married Kerry Kennedy, daughter of John's uncle Robert F. Kennedy -- by Republican George Pataki in 1994, it was speculated that John would oppose Pataki in 1998. He chose not to.

When Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Democrat who had been a sub-Cabinet official under his father, announced his retirement rather than run in the 2000 election, the wide guess was that John would run for Moynihan's seat. He never publicly denied it, but there was no indication that he was making preparations to run for the seat, which ended up being won by First Lady Hillary Clinton.

But the spectre of tragedy has long hung over the Kennedy family. In addition to his father's assassination in 1963, his uncle Robert was assassinated while running for President in 1968. His uncle Ted (Edward M. Kennedy) was involved in a fatal car crash the following year. Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., the eldest brother of Jack, Bobby and Ted, was killed in service in World War II in 1944. One of their sisters, Kathleen, was killed in a plane crash in 1948. Another, Rosemary was left hopelessly disabled in 1940, in a surgical attempt to cure the apparent disability she already had.

Several of Bobby's kids had gotten involved in drugs, and it killed Bobby's son David in 1984. And Bobby's son Michael had been killed in a skiing accident in 1997. At the time, John was taking flying lessons, and he remembered that his mother, who died of cancer in 1994, was worried that he might die in a plane crash. He resumed his lessons, anyway.

On July 15, 1999, I attended the New York Yankees' game against the Atlanta Braves at the old Yankee Stadium, a 6-2 defeat. Unbeknownst to me until after the weekend, when the media showed footage of it on TV, John and Carolyn Kennedy had also attended the game. Despite the family's Boston roots making most of them Boston Red Sox fans, and the Shriver wing of the family coming from Baltimore and being Baltimore Orioles fans, JFK Jr. was, apparently, a Yankee fan.

The following day, John, Carolyn, and Carolyn's sister Lauren, who worked for brokerage firm Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, left New York for Essex County Airport in Fairfield, New Jersey. They were headed for the family home, known as the Kennedy Compound, in Hyannis Port, on Massachusetts' Cape Cod, for the wedding of Bobby's last child, Rory Kennedy, born 6 months after her father's assassination, to Mark Bailey. They had met through their work, as both are documentary filmmakers.

Traffic out of Manhattan, understandable due to it being evening rush hour on a Friday, was bad, and it wasn't until 8:38 PM that John was able to take off in the Piper Saratoga that he had bought 3 months earlier. The plan was to land at Martha's Vineyard Airport, on the island off the coast of Massachusetts, not far from another island, Nantucket; drop Lauren off there; and then take off again with Carolyn for Barnstable Airport on the mainland.

It was later determined that the plane hit the Atlantic Ocean at 9:41 PM, and that the most likely cause was spatial disorientation: As an under-experienced pilot, John may have been lower in the air than he realized.

At 2:15 AM on July 17, the Kennedy family notified Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod that the plane had not arrived. I woke up Saturday morning to the news that the plane was missing. Knowing of the "Kennedy Curse," I was convinced he and whoever was with him on the plane were dead.

It was a weird, and very hot, weekend, which also included the perfect game pitched by David Cone of the Yankees: The plane and the bodies hadn't been found, so we didn't have confirmation that they were dead, so a small hope still lingered. The tent set up for the wedding became the focal point of the family's vigil.

But fragments of the plane were found on the 19th. Late at night on the 20th, the fuselage was found. On the afternoon of the 21st, the bodies were found, all still strapped into their seats. Autopsies proved that they died on impact. All 3 were cremated, and their ashes scattered at sea.

Even more than for his father, who had accomplished many things as President, the question of "What might have been" hangs over the memory of John F. Kennedy Jr. At the John F. Kennedy Museum in Hyannis Port, there is a statue of both of them as grown men, arms around each other. A copy is in Rapid City, South Dakota, along with statues of all the other Presidents at a public park.

The Kennedy-Bailey wedding was postponed to August 2. Rory and Mark have 2 daughters and a son. George magazine printed a memorial issue for John, and folded in 2001.

The psychotic QAnon movement believes that John will return from the dead and tell people to support Donald Trump, and save America from sin. I guess they forgot, or are too insane to consider, than John was a Democrat, and, like the rest of the Kennedy family, would oppose Trump. Indeed, given the legal pursuit of Trump, it's entirely possible that John Kennedy Jr., rather than Alvin Bragg, might be leading one of the prosecution teams against Trump.

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July 16, 1999 was a Friday. These Major League Baseball games were played that day, all of them in Interleague Play:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Atlanta Braves, 10-7 at Yankee Stadium. Neither starting pitcher, Greg Maddux and Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez, got out of the 5th inning. The Yankees led 7-6 going into the 9th inning, but Mariano Rivera blew the save, including giving up a home run to Andruw Jones. It was 1 of 2 homers hit by Andruw on the night, and Ryan Klekso also hit 2 homers, and Chipper Jones hit 1. Derek Jeter hit a home run, and he and Ricky Ledee each got 3 hits for the Yankees, but it wasn't enough.

* The New York Mets beat the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, 9-7 at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida. Matt Franco hit a home run in support of Rick Reed. Wade Boggs had an RBI double.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Boston Red Sox, 5-4 at Fenway Park in Boston.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Montreal Expos, 9-4 at Camden Yards in Baltimore. This was one of the rare Oriole games between 1982 and 2001 in which Cal Ripken Jr. did not appear.

* The Florida Marlins beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 4-2 at the SkyDome (now the Rogers Centre) in Toronto.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Cleveland Indians, 11-3 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. 

* The Colorado Rockies beat the Cincinnati Reds, 6-2 at Cinergy Field (formerly Riverfront Stadium) in Cincinnati.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Minnesota Twins, 11-10 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. The wind was blowing out: The Cubs got home runs from Sammy Sosa, Henry Rodriguez, Jeff Blauser and former Twin Gary Gaetti; while the Twins got them from Torii Hunter, Chad Allen and Ron Coomer.

* A doubleheader was split at Milwaukee County Stadium. The Milwaukee Brewers won the opener, 2-0. The Kansas City Royals won the nightcap, 12-10.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 9-8 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Mark McGwire hit 2 home runs.

* The Texas Rangers beat the Arizona Diamondbacks, 9-8 at The Ballpark (now Choctaw Stadium) in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. Todd Zeile drew a walk off Dan Plesac with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 9th, to win it.

* The Houston Astros beat the Detroit Tigers, 2-1 at the Astrodome in Houston.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Anaheim Angels, 3-1 at Edison International Field (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim).

* The Oakland Athletics beat the San Francisco Giants, 4-2 at the Oakland Coliseum (then named the Network Associates Coliseum). Barry Bonds went 0-for-3, but did draw a walk -- not an intentional one.

* And the San Diego Padres beat the Seattle Mariners, 2-1 at the new Safeco Field (now T-Mobile Park) in Seattle. Ken Griffey Jr. went 1-for-4. Tony Gwynn did not enter the game.

One more game of note: In the independent Atlantic League, the Newark Bears played their 1st home game at Riverfront Stadium, across from Broad Street Station, and beat the Lehigh Valley Black Diamonds, 9-8 on a walkoff home run. Sadly, despite winning Pennants in 2002 and 2007, the Bears, named for a former Yankee farm team, never caught on, and went out of business in 2013. Their stadium was demolished in 2019, only 20 years old.