A timeline of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s life:

-Feb. 22, 1932: Edward Moore Kennedy is born in Boston, the youngest of nine children of Joseph P. and Rose Kennedy.

-May 1951: Kennedy is caught cheating on an exam and leaves Harvard College. He enlists in the Army and serves for the next 16 months and later re-enrolls at Harvard.

-June 1954: Kennedy graduates from Harvard and enrolls at the University of Virginia Law School. He graduates in 1959.

-Nov. 29, 1958: Kennedy marries Virginia Joan Bennett.

-Nov. 8, 1960: Sen. John F. Kennedy is elected president of the United States.

-March 1962: Kennedy resigns as assistant district attorney in Suffolk County, Mass. He announces his candidacy for his brother John’s unexpired Senate term.

-Nov. 6, 1962: Kennedy is elected as a Massachusetts senator.

-Nov. 22 1963: President Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas.

-June 1964: Kennedy’s back is broken in a plane crash that kills his aide and the pilot.

-Nov. 3 1964: Brother Robert Kennedy is elected to the Senate from New York.

-March 1968: Sen. Robert Kennedy announces his candidacy for the presidency.

-June 5, 1968: After winning the California primary, Robert Kennedy is shot in Los Angeles and dies the next day.

-July 18, 1969: Kennedy drives his car off a bridge at Chappaquiddick, Mass., and manages to escape. His passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, drowns. Kennedy later pleads guilty to leaving the scene of an accident, a misdemeanor, and receives a two-month suspended sentence and a year’s probation.

-July 25, 1969: Kennedy delivers a television address to explain his actions at Chappaquiddick.

-Nov. 3, 1970: Kennedy is re-elected to the Senate, but he loses his majority whip position. He chairs the Senate Health Committee.

-November 1979: Kennedy announces his candidacy for the 1980 presidential election.

-January-August 1980: Kennedy wins Democratic primaries in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, California, New Mexico, Rhode Island, South Dakota, and New Jersey. The rest go to the incumbent, President Jimmy Carter.

-August 1980: In an emotional speech to the Democratic National Convention, Kennedy withdraws his bid for the presidency.

-December 1982: Kennedy announces he will not run for president in 1984. After 24 years of marriage, he divorces his wife, Joan.

-Dec. 19, 1985: Kennedy announces he will not run for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination.

-March 1991: A woman accuses Kennedy’s nephew, William Kennedy Smith, of raping her at the family’s Palm Beach, Fla., estate. He is later acquitted of the charge.

-June 11, 1991: A conservative political group files an ethics complaint against Kennedy, alleging that he violated Senate rules by his actions relating to the alleged rape. Kennedy raised questions when he left Palm Beach, Fla., without speaking to police, who had made attempts to contact him.

-June 19, 1991: The Senate Ethics Committee dismisses the complaint against Kennedy.

-Oct. 15, 1991: Kennedy’s son Edward M. Kennedy Jr. says in statement he spent three weeks in an alcohol treatment center because drinking was “impairing my ability to achieve the goals I care about.”

-Oct. 25, 1991: Kennedy takes responsibility for “faults in the conduct of my private life” and pledges to reform his lifestyle, in a speech at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

-September 1992: A book by former administrative assistant Richard E. Burke depicts Kennedy as a former partygoer, womanizer and cocaine user. Kennedy calls the book “a collection of bizarre and untrue stories.”

-July 1992: Kennedy marries Victoria Reggie, a Washington lawyer.

-Oct. 13, 1994: The Senate Ethics Committee dismisses allegations of sexual harassment and drug use by Kennedy.

-Jan. 4, 1995: Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy, son of the Massachusetts senator, becomes the youngest member of the 104th Congress.

-July 16, 1999: John F. Kennedy Jr., nephew to Kennedy, and his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and her sister, Lauren Bessette, perish in a plane crash in the waters off Martha’s Vineyard.

-Feb. 6, 2000: Kennedy is released from a hospital after being treated for bacterial pneumonia.

-April 5, 2004: Kennedy says Iraq has become “George Bush’s Vietnam” and compares him to former President Nixon.

-May 5, 2006: Rep. Patrick Kennedy, son of the Massachusetts senator, drives his vehicle into a Capitol Hill security barrier

-June 13, 2006: A judge sentences Patrick Kennedy to drug treatment and a year’s probation after he pleads guilty to driving under the influence of prescription drugs.

-November 2006: Kennedy easily wins an eighth term that will extend his Senate career to an even 50 years in 2012.

-Oct. 30, 2007: Kennedy has surgery in Boston to clear a partially blocked artery in his neck.

-Jan. 28, 2008: Kennedy announces he is endorsing Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination for president.

-May 17, 2008: Kennedy suffers a seizure at his Cape Cod home.

-May 20, 2008: Doctors diagnose Kennedy with a cancerous brain tumor.

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Source: The Associated Press and PBS.