15 Things You Might Not Have Known About Jackie Kennedy Onassis

Jackie was born on July 28, 1929, in Southampton, NY, making her the first first lady to be born in the 20th century.

Jackie was only 1 when her mother got her into horseback riding. By the time she was 11, she had already won multiple championships and was even featured in The New York Times for her accomplishments.

After graduating high school, Jackie attended Vassar College in New York, where she studied history, literature, art, and French. She spent her junior year studying abroad in Paris before transferring to George Washington University for her senior year, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in French literature in 1951.

In addition to studying French in college, Jackie was also fluent in Spanish and Italian.

Jackie's younger sister Lee Radziwill, whose birth name is Caroline Lee Bouvier, was married to Polish aristocrat Prince Stanislaw Albrecht Radziwill from 1959 to 1974. During their marriage, she was given the official title of Her Serene Highness Princess Stanislaw Albrecht Radziwill. Jackie also had two half-siblings, Janet and James Auchincloss, through her mother's second marriage to Hugh D. Auchincloss.

Jackie had a successful career as a reporter and photographer for the Washington Times-Herald before becoming the first lady. She was known as the "inquiring photographer," as she interviewed local citizens about everything from politics to relationships. During her time at the publication, she interviewed JFK's future presidential opponent Richard Nixon.

Before becoming the first lady, Jackie served as a journalist for Queen Elizabeth II's coronation on June 2, 1953. Jackie and JFK later met the queen and Prince Philip during an official visit at Buckingham Palace in June 1961.

When she was 22, Jackie was briefly engaged to a Wall Street banker named John Husted. After three months, she called off the engagement in March 1952 because she was reportedly hesitant about becoming a housewife. She started dating JFK shortly after.

The famous couple met through their mutual friend journalist Charles L. Bartlett at a dinner party in May 1952. They tied the knot a year later on Sept. 12, 1953, at St. Mary's Church in Newport, RI.

When JFK took office in January 1961, Jackie was only 31 years old. Though she was incredibly young when she took on the position, she was actually the third-youngest first lady. Frances Folsom Cleveland, who married President Grover Cleveland in June 1886, was the youngest at age 21.

Jackie suffered a miscarriage in 1955, followed by the birth of a stillborn baby girl in 1956 who was reportedly going to be named Arabella. After giving birth to her daughter Caroline Kennedy in 1957 and her son John F. Kennedy Jr. in 1960, Jackie gave birth to her third child, Patrick Kennedy, prematurely on Aug. 7, 1963. He lived for just over 39 hours before passing away on Aug. 9. Patrick and Arabella are buried alongside JFK at Arlington National Cemetery.

Jackie went to extreme measures to keep her children out of the spotlight when they were living in the White House. Due to safety concerns, she eventually turned the White House's third floor solarium into a nursery school for her kids as well a few children from the Kennedy administration staff.

During her time as first lady, Jackie worked hard to restore the White House's historical character. In addition to initiating a congressional bill that deemed all White House furnishing would be property of the Smithsonian Institution, she also established the White House Historical Association, the Committee For the Preservation of the White House, the position of a permanent curator of the White House, the White House Endowment Trust, and the White House Acquisition Trust.

Following the White House's renovations, Jackie hosted a televised tour of the White House with Charles Collingwood of CBS News. The film was watched by 56 million television viewers in the United States and eventually earned her a special Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Trustees Award at the Emmys in 1962.

After the death of her second husband, Aristotle Onassis, in 1975, Jackie pursued a career as a book editor. She started off as a a consulting editor at Viking Press before taking a position as a senior editor at Doubleday, where she worked until her death in 1994.