28 July: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was born on this date in 1929 and would therefore have celebrated her 90th birthday today. She was the first First Lady to be born in the 20th century, and the youngest, at 31, since Frances Cleveland. Here are 10 things you might not know about her.

1. As a child, her teachers described her as “full of the devil” because she misbehaved at school. Her parents believed it was because she'd finished her work before everyone else and got bored.
2. Tabloid journalist Igor Cassini named her Debutante of the Year in 1948.
3. Her day job before her marriage was as a reporter and photographer. At the age of 22, she entered and won a Vogue writing contest, the prize being a job as junior editor for six months in New York and six months in Paris. She only worked at that job for one day. On her first day, her boss told her she should leave because the job would damage her marriage prospects. A future first lady of today would no doubt sue him for sexual discrimination but things were different in the 1950s. Jackie took his advice on board and left immediately.
4. Her next job was as receptionist at the Washington Times-Herald. While this job was presumably more conducive to snaring a husband, Jackie was bored of it within a week and persuaded the editor to give her a job as "Inquiring Camera Girl", which involved interviewing random people on the street and taking their photographs. She went on to interview Tricia Nixon, then aged six, after her father Richard Nixon was made Vice President in 1952, and to travel to England to report on the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
5. JFK wasn't the first man she became engaged to. In January 1952, she announced her engagement to Wall Street banker John Husted. However, by March, she had broken the engagement off, allegedly because she'd decided Husted was boring and immature for his age, and because she had doubts about becoming a housewife.
6. She met JFK at a dinner party. He proposed to her after being elected to Senate. Jackie took her time giving him an answer. She was already committed to going to Europe for the Queen's Coronation and decided to spend a month travelling in Europe while making her mind up. When she got back, she accepted his proposal. There were 700 guests at their wedding in Rhode Island and 1,300 at the reception.
7. One of the things she was famous for was refurbishing the White House and getting through her $50,000 budget in a matter of days. She'd visited the White House at the age of 12, little knowing that she'd one day live there. She'd been frustrated that there was so little information for visitors, and so little historic furniture. As First Lady, she had the opportunity to change all that. When it was done, in February 1962, she invited CBS-TV to film a tour of the newly refurbished mansion. The resulting programme won her an Emmy award, making her the only First Lady to win one.
8. Her marriage to Aristotle Onassis after Kennedy's death brought her a considerable amount of bad press. Onassis was a long time friend of hers, and its possible that one consideration in deciding to marry him was that he'd be able to provide privacy and security. She had, after Robert Kenndy was assassinated, suffered from depression and was afraid someone might come after her or her children: "If they're killing Kennedys, then my children are targets ... I want to get out of this country", she said. The wedding took place on Skorpios, Onassis' private Greek island in the Ionian Sea. She took his name, forfeiting her right to the Secret Service protection she was entitled to as a president's widow.
9. When Aristotle died in 1975, she went back to work, as a book editor at Viking Press and Doubleday. As well as books about her first husband, she also edited Michael Jackson's autobiography and Jeffrey Archer's novel, Shall We Tell the President? She continued working as an editor until she died.
10. Actors who have portrayed her on screen include Jaclyn Smith, Blair Brown, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Joanne Whalley, Jacqueline Bisset, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Katie Holmes and Natalie Portman.

See Also: Assassination of John F Kennedy