John F. Kennedy is elected to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts.

Rep. Kennedy (D) narrowly defeats Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (R) to become the third Democrat elected to to the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts history. In Boston, Kennedy receives 235,411 votes and Lodge 116,018. Kennedy’s grandfather, John F. Fitzgerald, had been defeated by Lodge’s grandfather for the same office in 1936. Kennedy’s mother, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy later reflects on an incident that occurred in the winter of 1879, when her father, then a young newsboy, was given shelter by the Lodge’s cook in their house at 31 Beacon Street, writing, “In his wildest dreams that winter’s night, could he ever have imagined how far both he and his family would come?” Kennedy is reelected until 1960.*