Hillary Clinton Age, Husband, Children, Family, Biography

 

Some Lesser Known Facts About Hillary Clinton

• Hillary Rodham Clinton has many firsts to her name including the First Lady of the United States, U.S. Senator, presidential candidate, and Secretary of State. In her 2003 memoir Living History, she wrote,
  

  My mother and my grandmothers could never have lived my life; my father and my grandfathers could never have imagined it. But they bestowed on me the promise of America, which made my life and my choices possible.”

• When Hillary was three years old, her family moved to Illinois, where they lived in a two-story brick house in Park Ridge, where she grew up along with her two younger brothers, Hugh and Tony.
  

  Hillary Clinton (2nd from right) with her parents and siblings in Illinois

• Her father, Hugh Ellsworth Rodham, was a World War II Navy veteran who owned a small drapery fabric business and was a Republican from Pennsylvania.

• Her mother, Dorothy Howell Rodham, was a Democrat who started working as a nanny at 14 after leaving her home.

• Hillary Clinton credits her mother as her defining inspiration. She says,
  

  My mother never got a chance to go to college, who had a very difficult childhood, but who gave me a belief that I could do whatever I set my mind [to].”

  

  Hillary Clinton with her mother

• In childhood, she dreamed of becoming a baseball player, journalist, and an astronaut.

• She showed an early interest in politics by taking active participation in her Methodist church and excelling in the town’s first-rate public schools.

• Hillary was a teacher’s favorite, and she earned numerous awards as a Girl Scout and Brownie.
  

  Hillary Clinton, center, pictured with elementary school classmates in 1957

• When she was 13, she applied to NASA to be admitted to its astronaut program but was rejected citing her gender.

• Inspired by her father’s political leanings, 13-year-old Hillary canvassed the South Side of Chicago after Richard Nixon’s defeat. She also volunteered for Barry Goldwater’s campaign in 1964.

• In 1965, she enrolled at Wellesley College, where she studied political science as a major.

• During her freshman year at Wellesley College, she became the president of the Young Republicans Club.

• Speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave her new political perspectives, and by 1968, she had started working for politicians of both parties.

• By the end of 1968, Hillary had decided to leave the Republican Party.

• After switching to the Democratic Party in 1968, she campaigned for Eugene McCarthy.

• After the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., she organized a two-day strike at Wellesley and gained national attention after her commencement address. In her speech, she criticized a Republican Senator on the platform and earned a seven-minute standing ovation. In her speech, she said,
  

  For too long, those who lead us have viewed politics as the art of the possible. The challenge that faces them and us – now – is to practice politics as the art of making possible what appears to be impossible.”

  

  A newspaper cutting of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s commencement speech that she gave in 1969

• In the summer of 1969, she reportedly worked in a fishery canning factory in Valdez, Alaska.

• While studying at Yale Law School, Hillary demonstrated her interests in social justice, children and families, and politics through various activities.

• In 1970, she worked as a summer intern for civil rights lawyer Marian Wright Edelman.

• In the spring of 1971, Hillary met Bill Clinton at Yale, where both began a lifelong relationship.
  

  Hillary Clinton pictured with Bill Clinton at Yale Law School

• When she was 27, she tried to join The Marines but was rejected, citing her poor vision and being too old.

• In 1973-74, she worked as an attorney for the Children’s Defense Fund.

• In January 1974, Hillary moved to Washington to work as a member of the impeachment inquiry staff advising the House Committee on the Judiciary during the Watergate investigation, while Bill Clinton returned to Arkansas to pursue his political career.

• After Richard Nixon resigned as the President, Hillary’s job ended, and she decided to move to Fayetteville, Arkansas to be with Bill Clinton., where she started teaching at the University of Arkansas School of Law.

• In October 1975, Bill and Hillary got married to each other in a small ceremony at their home in Arkansas.
  

  Bill and Hillary Clinton married at this house in Arkansas

• While working as a teacher at the University of Arkansas Law School, Bill ran unsuccessfully for Congress; Hillary also joined the University of Arkansas Law School as a faculty member.

• From 1974 to 1977, she served as Director of the Legal Aid Clinic at the University of Arkansas School of Law.

• During 1974-1977 and 1979-1980, she served as an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Arkansas School of Law.

• In 1976, Bill and Hillary Clinton moved to the capital city of Little Rock after Bill was elected as Attorney General of Arkansas.

• In Little Rock, Hillary began working at the well-established and politically connected Rose Law Firm; she worked for several non-profit organizations and large corporations.

• In 1976, she served as Jimmy Carter’s Indiana director of field operations.

• In 1979, Bill Clinton became governor of Arkansas following which public attention on Hillary started increasing. She was also criticised for her Bohemian style and not adopting her husband’s last name after marriage; however, she started adopting the Clinton last name after Bill lost the 1981 gubernatorial election.

• After Bill Clinton became the Governor of Arkansas, she continued to work at Rose Law Firm, making her the first First Lady of Arkansas to continue working while her husband was governor.

• During Bill Clinton’s five terms (1979-81 and 1983-92) as governor of Arkansas, Hillary played a prominent role as Arkansas’ first lady.

• In 1983, Governor Bill Clinton appointed her to head the Arkansas Education Standards Committee.

• Her extensive work on education as the first lady of Arkansas earned Bill the title “education governor,” raising his national profile.

• When Bill Clinton became the 42nd President of the United States in 1993, Hillary Clinton became the first to have a postgraduate degree, her own professional career, and her own office in the West Wing of the White House.
  

  Hillary Clinton (right) at the oath taking ceremony of Bill Clinton as the President of the United States

• After Eleanor Roosevelt, Hillary Clinton became the first to actively participate in policy-making.

• After arriving at the White House, she converted the serving kitchen on the second floor into a family kitchen, where Hillary, Bill, and their daughter Chelsea would gather around the table just as they had in Arkansas.

• During Bill Clinton’s second term as the President of the United States, Hillary focused on health and welfare issues.

• In 1994, she helped create the Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women.

• In 1995, she began writing a weekly syndicated newspaper column, “Talking It Over,” in which she shared her experiences as First Lady and observations of women, children, and families she met across the country and around the world.

• In the same year, she led the U.S. delegation to Beijing to attend the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women, where she gave an impressive speech in which she declared,
  

  Human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights once and for all”

  

  Hillary Clinton’s UN speech in Beijing on women’s rights

• When Hillary met mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary in Nepal in 1995, she reported to the press that her name had been after the famed climber. However, in 2006, she denied the story by saying it was a myth.
  

  Hillary Clinton pictured with Sir Edmund Hillary in 1995

• In 1996, Hillary authored “It Takes a Village and Other Lessons Children Teach Us,” which focused on the importance of parents and society in children’s growth.

• Bill and Hillary Clinton became the only “First couple” ever to be fingerprinted by the FBI due to a scandal called “Filegate” during the Presidency of Bill Clinton in June 1996.

• In 1997, she supported the passage and rollout of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which provided health insurance for children in lower-income families.

• In 1999, she became the first wife of a US President to become a senator. She also became the first female senator from New York.

• On 13 February 2001, she made her first address on the floor of the Senate.

• On 9 June 2003, she published her memoir “Living History,” which sold over 200,000 copies on its first day of release.
  

  Hillary Clinton promoting her memoir Living History

• Although she earned the most delegates and primary victories of any woman who had run before, she lost the Democratic nomination to Illinois Senator Barack Obama.

• When Obama appointed her Secretary of State in 2009, she became the first former First Lady to serve in a presidential cabinet.
  

  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with President Barack Obama and others receiving an update on the Navy SEALs’ mission against Osama bin Laden, in the Situation Room of the White House

• In December 2012, she suffered a traumatic brain injury following which doctors discovered a blood clot located between her brain and skull.

• Her 2014 book “Hard Choices” ranked as the No. 1 political book of 2014.
  

  Hillary Clinton promoting her book Hard Choices

• In July 2016, she became the first woman to earn a major party’s nomination for president; she earned 66 million votes.

• On 12 September 2017, she published her third memoir “What Happened” in which she mentioned the events of the 2016 presidential election, the FBI investigation into her private email server, Russian meddling, fellow candidates Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, as well as her marriage to Bill Clinton.
  

  Hillary Clinton promoting her third memoir, What Happened

• On 1 October 2019, she published a book titled “The Book of Gutsy Women,” co-written with her daughter Chelsea.

• On 12 October 2021, she published a book titled “State of Terror,” co-written with novelist Louise Penny.

• On 22 March 2022, she was tested positive for Covid-19.

• On 9 September 2022, an eight-episode documentary series, “Gutsy,” premiered on Apple TV, featuring Hillary Clinton and her daughter, Chelsea.

• In February 2023, she joined Columbia University as a professor and presidential fellow.

• In March 2023, she supported marriage rights for same-sex couples; however, she did not support same-sex marriage in the 2008 presidential primaries.

• Hillary Clinton loves art, and sculpture is one of her favorite art forms, even her first date with President Clinton was in the sculpture garden at Yale University.

• Hillary Clinton has been featured on the cover of Time Magazine 19 times, the most by any women politician in the United States.
  

  Hillary Clinton featured on the cover of Time magazine

• 112 countries in four years, traveled almost 1 million miles, and spent more about 25% of her time on the road (and in the air). These are the facts that make her the most traveled Secretary of State of the United States.

• In an interview, she revealed that she hasn’t driven a car since 1996.