Longtime U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy Has Died

Edward "Ted" Kennedy, a longtime U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, died Tuesday night at the age of 77, his family announced. He had been suffering from brain cancer for the last year.

Ted Kennedy is the younger brother of two famous American politicians, both of whom were killed by assassins: President John F. Kennedy and U.S. Senator from California Robert Kennedy (who was running for the Democratic nomination for president at the time he was killed).

Ted Kennedy died shortly before midnight at his home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. Ironically one of his sisters, Eunice Shriver, died in recent weeks. Ted Kennedy was too ill to attend her funeral. One of her daughters, Maria Shriver, is a former TV personality who is married to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Kennedy was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1962, when he was 30 years old. He made a couple of unsuccessful runs for president of the country, but never came close to getting his party's nomination.