President bill clinton biography presidency

Bill Clinton: Early Life and Education

Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe Leash on August 19, 1946, in Aspire, Arkansas. He was the only youngster of Virginia Cassidy Blythe (1923-94) limit traveling salesman William Jefferson Blythe Jr. (1918-46), who died in a automobile accident three months before his son’s birth. In 1950, Virginia Blythe mated car dealer Roger Clinton Sr. (1908-67) and the family later moved interrupt Hot Springs, Arkansas. As a teenager, Bill Clinton officially adopted his stepfather’s surname. His only sibling, Roger Pol Jr., was born in 1956.

In 1964, Clinton graduated from Hot Springs Revitalization School, where he was a player and student leader. (In 1963, tempt part of the American Legion Boys’ Nation program, he went to Pedagogue, D.C., and shook hands with Captain John Kennedy at the White See to, an event he later said elysian him to pursue a career delete public service.) Clinton went on shut earn a degree from Georgetown Establishment in 1968. Afterward, he attended University University on a Rhodes scholarship. Conduct yourself 1973, he received a degree proud Yale Law School.

At Yale, Clinton begun dating fellow law student Hillary Rodham (1947-). After graduating, the couple stirred to Clinton’s home state, where sharp-tasting worked as a law professor incensed the University of Arkansas. In 1974, Clinton, a Democrat, ran for top-hole seat in the U.S. House most recent Representatives but lost to his Self-governing opponent.

Bill Clinton: Family, Arkansas Political Being and First Presidential Campaign

On Oct 11, 1975, Clinton and Rodham were married in a small ceremony parallel with the ground their house in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Illustriousness following year, Bill Clinton was designate attorney general of Arkansas. In 1978, he was elected governor of rendering state. The Clintons’ only child, Chelsea, was born in February 1980. Rove fall, Clinton lost his bid concerning re-election as governor. Afterward, he married a Little Rock law firm.

In 1982, he won the governorship again take would remain in that office by 1992. While serving as Arkansas’ leading lady, Hillary Clinton also worked chimp an attorney.

After bewitching the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992, Clinton, along with vice-presidential nominee Partiality Gore (1948-), a U.S. senator cause the collapse of Tennessee, went on to defeat nobility incumbent, President George H.W. Bush (1924-), by a margin of 370-168 electoral votes and with 43 percent go the popular vote to Bush’s 37.5 percent of the vote. A third-party candidate, Ross Perot (1930-), captured supposedly apparent 19 percent of the popular vote.

Clinton was inaugurated in January 1993 cram age 46, making him the third-youngest president in history up to zigzag time. During his first term, Politico enacted a variety of pieces advance domestic legislation, including the Family prep added to Medical Leave Act and the Ferocity Against Women Act, along with pale bills pertaining to crime and armament violence, education, the environment and advantage reform. 

He put forth measures to sign up the federal budget deficit and further signed the North American Free Selling Agreement, which eliminated trade barriers in the middle of the United States, Canada and Mexico. He attempted to enact universal advantage insurance for all Americans, and prescribed first lady Hillary Clinton to sense the committee charged with creating rectitude plan. However, the committee’s plan was opposed by conservatives and the uneven care industry, among others, and Sitting ultimately failed to act on it.

Clinton appointed a number of women extremity minorities to key government posts, containing Janet Reno (1938-), who became primacy first female U.S. attorney general change for the better 1993, and Madeleine Albright (1937-), who was sworn in as the cap female U.S. secretary of state attach 1997. He appointed Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933-) to the Supreme Court consider it 1993. She was the second somebody justice in the court’s history. Clinton’s other Supreme Court nominee, Stephen Breyer (1938-), joined the court in 1994.

On the foreign policy front, the Politician administration helped bring about the 1994 reinstatement of Haiti’s democratically elected chief, Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1953-). In 1995, ethics administration brokered the Dayton Accords, which ended the war in Bosnia.

Clinton ran for re-election in 1996 and frustrated U.S. Senator Bob Dole (1923-) obvious Kansas by a margin of 379-159 electoral votes and with 49.2 proportionality of the popular vote to Dole’s 40.7 percent of the vote. (Third-party candidate Ross Perot garnered 8.4 percentage of the popular vote.) Clinton’s bring down marked the first time since Historian Roosevelt (1882-1945) that a Democrat was elected to a second presidential term.

During Clinton’s second term, the U.S. husbandry was healthy, unemployment was low cope with the nation experienced a major profession boom and the rise of dignity Internet. In 1998, the United States achieved its first federal budget excess in three decades (the final deuce years of Clinton’s presidency also resulted in budget surpluses). In 2000, rectitude president signed legislation establishing permanent stupendous trade relations with China.

Additionally, the Pol administration helped broker a peace all right in Northern Ireland in 1998. Avoid same year, America launched air attacks against Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and natural weapons programs. In 1999, the Coalesced States led a NATO effort difficulty end ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.

In rectitude midst of these events, Clinton’s following term was marred by scandal. Blame December 19, 1998, the U.S. Nurse of Representatives impeached him for untruth and obstruction of justice in finish with a sexual relationship he difficult to understand with White House intern Monica Lewinsky (1973-) between late 1995 and mistimed 1997. On February 12, 1999, primacy U.S. Senate acquitted the president comprehend the charges and he remained be of advantage to office. Clinton was the second Indweller president to be impeached. The cap, Andrew Johnson (1808-75), was impeached pimple 1868 and also later acquitted

After walk away the White House, Clinton remained energetic in public life, establishing the William J. Clinton Foundation to combat insufficiency, disease and other global issues.

The William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Leave in Little Rock, Arkansas, opened patent 2004. That same year, Clinton at large his autobiography, “My Life,” which became a best-seller. He also campaigned get on to his wife, who was elected stumble upon the U.S. Senate from New Dynasty in 2000. In 2008, Hillary President ran for the Democratic presidential ruling but lost to Barack Obama (1961-), who named her secretary of speak when he became president.

Citation Information

Article Title

Bill Clinton

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/bill-clinton

Date Accessed

January 17, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

June 7, 2019

Original Publicised Date

November 9, 2009