Biography of Bill Clinton

William Jefferson Bill Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III, on August 19, 1946 Hope,
Arkansas, was the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. At 46 he was the thirdyoungest president. He became president at the end of the Cold War, and was the first baby
boomer president. His wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, is currently the United States Secretary of
State. Each received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from Yale Law School.
His father, William Jefferson Blythe, Jr., was a traveling salesman who died in an automobile
accident three months before Bill was born. Following Bills birth, in order to study nursing, his
mother Virginia Dell Cassidy (19231994), traveled to New Orleans, leaving Bill in Hope with
grandparents Eldridge and Edith Cassidy, who owned and operated a small grocery store.
Although he assumed use of his stepfathers surname, it was not until Billy (as he was known
then) turned fourteen that he formally adopted the surname Clinton as a gesture toward his
stepfather. Clinton says he remembers his stepfather as a gambler and an alcoholic who regularly
abused his mother and half-brother Roger Clinton, Jr., to the point where he intervened multiple
times with the threat of violence in order to protect them.
In 2004, he released his autobiography My Life, and was involved in his wife Hillarys 2008
presidential campaign and subsequently in that of President Barack Obama. In 2009, he was
named United Nations Special Envoy to Haiti. In the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake,
Clinton teamed with George W. Bush to form the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund.
Clintons sexual relationship with a 22-year-old White House intern named Monica Lewinsky led
to the Lewinsky scandal. In a lame duck session after the 1998 elections, the House voted to
impeach Clinton, based on allegations Clinton lied about his relationship with Lewinsky in a sworn
deposition in the Paula Jones lawsuit. This made Clinton only the second U.S. president to be
impeached after Andrew Johnson.
As Clintons presidency was ending, his wifes political career was beginning. In 2000 Hillary
Rodham Clinton was elected to the U.S. Senate representing New York; she was the first wife of
a U.S. president to win elected office. She went on to lose narrowly to Barack Obama the
Democratic Partys presidential nomination in 2008, but Obama appointed her secretary of state
in his presidential administration. Bill Clinton remained active in political affairs and was a popular
speaker on the lecture circuit. In 2001 he founded the William J. Clinton Foundation, a
philanthropic organization that addressed various global issues through such programs as the
Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative (established 2002), the Clinton Economic Opportunity Initiative (2002),
the Clinton Global Initiative (2005), and the Clinton Climate Initiative (2006). In 2004 the William
J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum opened in Little Rock.
Clinton married Hillary Rodham, a fellow law student from Yale, on Oct. 11,1975. The couple had
a daughter, Chelsea, in 1980.