Hillary Clinton Biography

Biography of Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton holds an enviable profile. She was the First Lady of the United States during Bill Clinton’s presidency from 1993 to 2001. She served as the First Lady of Arkansas when her husband was the Governor of the state from 1979 to 81 and again from 1983 to 1992. She was the Senator of New York from 2001 to 2009 and also served as the Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013 in the administration of Barack Obama. If everything goes well for her, she may even assume the post of the President of the United States.

Early life and Education

Hillary Clinton was born on October 26, 1947, in Chicago, Illinois. From a very young age, she showed an aptitude for both sports and studies. She participated in a number of sports such as baseball and swimming and also distinguished herself by winning many awards as a Brownie and Girl Scout. She did remarkably well in education as well. During her senior year at the Maine South High School she was a National Merit Finalist. She also graduated in the top five percent of her class of 1965.

In the year 1965, Hillary Clinton joined the Wellesley College majoring in political science. After graduating from Wellesley College, Hillary Clinton enrolled at the Yale Law School. She met Bill Clinton at Yale University and married him in 1975.

Initiatives

In 1974, a year before her marriage to Bill Clinton, Hillary participated in the Watergate inquiry. The inquiry was about the possible impeachment of the then US President Richard Nixon. After her assignment ended, she moved to Arkansas taking up a teaching job with the University of Arkansas School of Law. Following her marriage to Bill Clinton in 1975, she joined Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, Arkansas, eventually becoming a partner. She made huge contributions as the First Lady of Arkansas following Bill Clinton’s election as the state Governor in 1975. Apart from her highly-successful law practice and serving on the boards of many top companies, she also worked on a number of programs that supported children, as well as the disadvantaged. The National Law Journal, in 1988 and 1991, named her as America’s 100 most influential lawyers. She also served as chair of the Arkansas Education Standards Committee.

Hillary Clinton became the First Lady of the United States upon the inauguration of her husband as the President of the country on January 20, 1993. As the First Lady she tried to contribute to strengthening the healthcare system; however, her effort to enact the Clinton health plan of 1993 ended in failure. In the years 1997 and 1999, Hillary Clinton helped in creating programs aimed at children such as adoption, foster care and health insurance. However, the last few years of the Clinton administration were marked by the Lewinsky scandal which took place in 1998.

In 2000, Hillary Clinton was elected as the first female Senator from New York. Just a year after taking office, the deadly September 11 attacks occurred. Following this, Hillary voted to approve the war in Afghanistan. During her terms as Senator, she also voted for the Iraq Resolution. The resolution accelerated the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. In 2007, she opposed the Iraq War troop surge.

She was taken on board by the Barack Obama administration as the Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013. Following the outbreak of the Arab Spring, Hillary Clinton supported US military intervention in Libya. She also took responsibility for the security lapses related to the 2012 Benghazi attack in which the US Ambassador, J Christopher Stevens, and three other Americans were killed.

Controversy

In March 2015, Hillary Clinton became embroiled in the E-mail controversy in she was accused of using personal email accounts on a non-government, privately maintained server rather than using federal government servers as secretary of state. Her critics argued that this violated State Department protocols and procedures, and federal laws and regulations governing recordkeeping requirements.

2016 US Presidential elections

Hillary Clinton had earlier announced her intention to run for the 2008 Presidential election; however, she lost to Barack Obama in the Democratic race who eventually went on to become the President of the country.

She is again running for President in the 2016 Presidential elections and has delivered a good performance. With 2,383 delegates needed to win the democratic nominations, Hillary Clinton has bagged 2784 delegates emerging as the presumptive nominee.