maven dependency failing, when running JPA populate method

Question

I have a simple populate method in Java, where I want to persist a Person object to a MySQL database, everything is working fine with the connection, but Iøm missing some sort of dependency, because I get an error whenever I run the project, no matter what schema or maven project i run it from. Here is the stacktrace i get:

    Exception Description: Configuration error.  Class [com.mysql.jdbc.Driver] not found.
Exception in thread "main" javax.persistence.PersistenceException: Exception [EclipseLink-4003] (Eclipse Persistence Services - 2.5.2.v20140319-9ad6abd): org.eclipse.persistence.exceptions.DatabaseException
Exception Description: Configuration error.  Class [com.mysql.jdbc.Driver] not found.
    at org.eclipse.persistence.internal.jpa.EntityManagerSetupImpl.deploy(EntityManagerSetupImpl.java:766)
    at org.eclipse.persistence.internal.jpa.EntityManagerFactoryDelegate.getAbstractSession(EntityManagerFactoryDelegate.java:204)
    at org.eclipse.persistence.internal.jpa.EntityManagerFactoryDelegate.getDatabaseSession(EntityManagerFactoryDelegate.java:182)
    at org.eclipse.persistence.internal.jpa.EntityManagerFactoryImpl.getDatabaseSession(EntityManagerFactoryImpl.java:527)
    at org.eclipse.persistence.jpa.PersistenceProvider.createEntityManagerFactoryImpl(PersistenceProvider.java:140)
    at org.eclipse.persistence.jpa.PersistenceProvider.createEntityManagerFactory(PersistenceProvider.java:177)
    at javax.persistence.Persistence.createEntityManagerFactory(Persistence.java:79)
    at javax.persistence.Persistence.createEntityManagerFactory(Persistence.java:54)
    at Person.Populate.main(Populate.java:20)
Caused by: Exception [EclipseLink-4003] (Eclipse Persistence Services - 2.5.2.v20140319-9ad6abd): org.eclipse.persistence.exceptions.DatabaseException
Exception Description: Configuration error.  Class [com.mysql.jdbc.Driver] not found.
    at org.eclipse.persistence.exceptions.DatabaseException.configurationErrorClassNotFound(DatabaseException.java:89)
    at org.eclipse.persistence.sessions.DefaultConnector.loadDriverClass(DefaultConnector.java:267)
    at org.eclipse.persistence.sessions.DefaultConnector.connect(DefaultConnector.java:85)
    at org.eclipse.persistence.sessions.DatasourceLogin.connectToDatasource(DatasourceLogin.java:162)
    at org.eclipse.persistence.internal.sessions.DatabaseSessionImpl.setOrDetectDatasource(DatabaseSessionImpl.java:204)
    at org.eclipse.persistence.internal.sessions.DatabaseSessionImpl.loginAndDetectDatasource(DatabaseSessionImpl.java:741)
    at org.eclipse.persistence.internal.jpa.EntityManagerFactoryProvider.login(EntityManagerFactoryProvider.java:239)
    at org.eclipse.persistence.internal.jpa.EntityManagerSetupImpl.deploy(EntityManagerSetupImpl.java:685)
    ... 8 more
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BUILD FAILURE
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total time: 1.666s
Finished at: Tue Sep 18 21:19:25 CEST 2018
Final Memory: 6M/238M
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Failed to execute goal org.codehaus.mojo:exec-maven-plugin:1.2.1:exec (default-cli) on project PersonJSON: Command execution failed. Process exited with an error: 1 (Exit value: 1) -> [Help 1]

To see the full stack trace of the errors, re-run Maven with the -e switch.
Re-run Maven using the -X switch to enable full debug logging.

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I have never seen this error before, and i have searched different forums, but nothing helped, i have tried cleaning and building the project without any help, I'm on ubuntu 16.04 distro.

Just in case, it would have something to do with my pom.xml i have listed it below:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

    <groupId>com.mycompany</groupId>
    <artifactId>PersonJSON</artifactId>
    <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <packaging>war</packaging>

    <name>PersonJSON</name>

    <properties>
        <endorsed.dir>${project.build.directory}/endorsed</endorsed.dir>
        <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
    </properties>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.eclipse.persistence</groupId>
            <artifactId>eclipselink</artifactId>
            <version>2.5.2</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.eclipse.persistence</groupId>
            <artifactId>org.eclipse.persistence.jpa.modelgen.processor</artifactId>
            <version>2.5.2</version>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>javax</groupId>
            <artifactId>javaee-web-api</artifactId>
            <version>7.0</version>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>3.1</version>
                <configuration>
                    <source>1.7</source>
                    <target>1.7</target>
                    <compilerArguments>
                        <endorseddirs>${endorsed.dir}</endorseddirs>
                    </compilerArguments>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.3</version>
                <configuration>
                    <failOnMissingWebXml>false</failOnMissingWebXml>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-dependency-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.6</version>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <phase>validate</phase>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>copy</goal>
                        </goals>
                        <configuration>
                            <outputDirectory>${endorsed.dir}</outputDirectory>
                            <silent>true</silent>
                            <artifactItems>
                                <artifactItem>
                                    <groupId>javax</groupId>
                                    <artifactId>javaee-endorsed-api</artifactId>
                                    <version>7.0</version>
                                    <type>jar</type>
                                </artifactItem>
                            </artifactItems>
                        </configuration>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>

</project>