Ethel Kennedy

Ethel Skakel Kennedy (born April 11, 1928) is an American human-rights campaigner and widow of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated while running for nomination as Democratic presidential candidate in 1968.

As Ethel Skakel, she was a classmate of Kennedy’s sister Jean at Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart. She and Kennedy married in 1950 and had seven sons and four daughters. Their house, Hickory Hill at McLean, Virginia, became the scene of notably elegant and exclusive parties.

Soon after her husband’s death, she founded the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, a nonprofit charity working to realize RFK’s dream of a just and peaceful world. In 2009, Ethel Kennedy was among the chief mourners at the funeral of her brother-in-law Ted Kennedy. In 2014, President Barack Obama awarded her a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Early life

Ethel Skakel was born in Chicago to businessman George Skakel (1892–1955) and secretary Ann Brannack (1892–1955). She was the Skakels' third daughter and sixth child, having five older siblings, Georgeann, James, George Jr., Rushton, and Patricia, and one younger sister, Ann. George was a Protestant of Dutch descent while Ann was a Catholic of Irish ancestry. Ethel and her siblings were raised Catholic in Greenwich, Connecticut. George Skakel was the founder of Great Lakes Carbon Corporation, now a division of SGLCarbon. She attended the all-girls Greenwich Academy in Greenwich, as well as the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Manhattan.

Taylor Swift

Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Raised in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, she moved to Nashville, Tennessee, at the age of 14 to pursue a career in country music. She signed with the independent label Big Machine Records and became the youngest songwriter ever signed by the Sony/ATV Music publishing house. The release of Swift's eponymous debut album in 2006 marked the start of her career as a country music singer. Her third single, "Our Song", made her the youngest person to single-handedly write and perform a number-one song on the Hot Country Songs chart.

Swift's second album, Fearless, was released in 2008. Buoyed by the pop crossover success of the singles "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me", Fearless became the best-selling album of 2009 in the United States. The album won four Grammy Awards, making Swift the youngest ever Album of the Year winner. Swift's third and fourth albums, 2010's Speak Now and 2012's Red, both sold more than one million copies within the first week of their U.S release. Speak Now's "Mean" won two Grammy Awards, while Red's singles "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and "I Knew You Were Trouble" were successful worldwide. Swift's fifth album, the pop-focused 1989, was released in 2014 and sold more copies in its opening week than any album in the previous 12 years, making Swift the first and only act to have three albums sell more than one million copies in the opening release week. Its singles "Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. The album would go on to win three awards at the 2016 Grammys including Album of the Year making Swift the first and thus far only female artist to receive the award twice.