Hillary Clinton - Former First Lady, Family and Childhood

Hillary Clinton was born on 26 October 1947, in Chicago, Illinois, to Hugh Rodham and Dorothy Howell. She is the eldest child of her parents and has two younger brothers, Hugh and Tony.

She graduated from Maine South High School in 1965, being a National Merit Finalist. Both her parents wanted her to have an independent career, not limited by gender biasness.

She enrolled at the Wellesley College in 1965, majoring in political science. During her college years, she was active in student politics and was elected as the president of the Wellesley Young Republicans.

Her political standing changed quite a couple of times during the decade of 1960s. She was seen as someone having a conservative mind with a liberal heart. In 1968, she was elected as the President for Wellesley College Government Association and worked at the post with full conviction.

Graduating from the college in 1969 with a BA with departmental honours in political science, she took up various odd jobs before finding herself a seat at the Yale Law School.

In 1970, she was selected to work with the U.S. Senator Walter Mondale's sub-committee on migrant workers. Following this, she interned at Oakland, California, with the law firm of Treuhaft, Walker and Burnstein, working on child custody and other cases.

She was awarded with a Juris Doctor degree from Yale in 1973. Thereafter, she began her one year postgraduate course on study of children and medicine at the Yale Child Study Center. It was while pursuing her postgraduate studies that she served as staff attorney for Children's Defense Fund.

In 1974, she was appointed as a member of the impeachment inquiry staff in Washington, D.C., advising the House Committee on the Judiciary during the Watergate scandal. The work of the committee led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

In 1974, she took to teaching criminal law at the University of Arkansas. Two years later, she moved to the state capital of Arkansas after her husband, Bill Clinton was appointed as the Arkansas Attorney General.

In 1977, she took up employment with the Rose Law Firm, specializing in patent infringement and intellectual property law. She even worked pro bono in child advocacy. The same year, she co-founded the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families.

Her tremendous political capabilities won her an appointment as the chief on the board of directors of Legal Service Corporation by President Jimmy Carter in 1978. Retaining the chair until 1980, she enhanced the funding for the Corporation more than three times, from $90 million to $300 million. Furthermore, she was the first woman to serve the position.

With the appointment of Bill Clinton as the Governor of Arkansas in 1979, she became the First Lady of Arkansas, a position which she held for twelve years, from 1979 to 1981 and 1983 to 1992. She was appointed as a chair at the Rural Health Advisory Committee and was endowed with the task of providing medical facilities in the poorest zones.

In 1983, she took control of the Arkansas Educational Standards Committee. During her tenure, she worked to improve the educational standard and made teacher testing mandatory. Furthermore, she set state standards for curriculum and classroom size.

For six years, from 1982 to 1988, she chaired a commanding position in the New World Foundation. Between 1987 and 1991, she served as one of the board of directors of American Bar Association's Commission on Women in the Profession, fighting against gender biasness. She also served on the boards of TCBY and Wal-Mart.

In 1992, she joined her husband in successfully campaigning for a seat in the Presidential elections as a democratic candidate. She undertook a valuable role in the elections and was a crucial factor for Bill Clinton’s victory.

With the appointment of Bill Clinton as the President of the United States in 1993, she became the First Lady of the United States. She was the first First Lady to hold a postgraduate degree and the first to have an office in the West Wing in addition of the First Lady office in East Wing.

Just as conceived by most, she played an active role in public policies and was often claimed to be the ‘co-president’. She chose almost eleven people for the topmost positions and dozen others at lower levels.

As a First Lady, she was appointed to head the Task Force on National Health Reform in 1993. Popularly known as Clinton health care plan, she aimed at making employers provide health coverage to their employees. However, lack of support led to abandonment of the plan in 1994.

It was the failure of Clinton health care plan that acted conversely and led to the downfall of the popularity of the Democrats and eventual rise of the Republicans in both House and Senate elections. Following this, her role in policy matters was downgraded.

In 1997, she came up with Children's Health Insurance Program, which helped children gain health coverage through state support. Furthermore, she promoted immunization, compulsory mammogram for females to check breast cancer, and funded research on prostate cancer and childhood asthma.

She commenced the initiation of various acts including, Adoption and Safe Families Act and Foster Care Independence Act. She created an Office on Violence Against Women at the Department of Justice and hosted numerous conferences.

As the First Lady, she visited 79 countries, including India and Pakistan to amend their relations with the US. During the trip, she envisioned the pitiable state of women which propelled her eventual career in diplomacy.

She along with Bill Clinton was invested in the Whitewater real estate project, which became the subject of congressional hearings and an independent counsel investigation. If this wasn’t disastrous enough, her husband’s infidelity issues further acted as the spoiler for the safeguarding effort.

She contested for the US Senate seat from New York eventually winning the same by a huge margin and was sworn in on January 3, 2001. With this, she became the first wife of a president to seek and win national office and the first woman to be elected to the US Senate from New York. She easily won re-election in November 2006.

During her terms, she strongly supported military action in Afghanistan, reworking on the security of the state following 9/11 attacks, obtaining funds for supporting recovery efforts in New York.

In 2007, she hinted about her intention of contesting the presidential elections of 2008, thus becoming the first woman to be nominated by a major party. Though she lost the elections to Barack Obama, she was nevertheless appointed as the Secretary of State.

As the Secretary of State, she continued to raise her voice for women rights and human rights. Furthermore, she prominently advocated U.S. military intervention in Libya and was at the forefront of US response to Arab Springs. She was one of the most travelled secretaries of State. She relinquished the position on February 1, 2013.

In April 2015 Clinton formally announced her candidacy for the presidency in the 2016 election. She faced a strong challenge from democratic socialist Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont but emerged victorious to be formally nominated at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in July 2016.

Pitted against business tycoon Donald Trump of the Republican party for the presidential chair, she held a significant lead in national polls over Trump throughout most of 2016.

During her campaigns, she based her economic philosophy on inclusive capitalism and supported the U.S. Export-Import Bank. She also called for a U.S. constitutional amendment that would result in overturning the 2010 Citizens United decision.

She supported the right to same-sex marriage and equal pay for equal work. She focused on family issues in her campaigns and was strongly in favor of universal preschool and the Affordable Care Act.

With various controversies surrounding her presidential opponent Donald Trump, it seemed for a while that Hillary Clinton might win the presidential election. However, it was not to be and on November 8, 2016, she lost the presidential election to Trump.

She has been the proud recipient of numerous awards and medals for her outstanding contributions as a politician and in the field of law. Furthermore, she was reckoned in every role that she took up. She has also been conferred with several honorary degrees from universities across the globe.

She tied the knot with long time beau Bill Clinton on October 11, 1975, in a Methodist ceremony. The couple has a daughter Chelsea.

You will be surprised to know that Hillary Clinton was once a Republican. During the presidential elections of 1964, she worked on Republican nominee Barry Goldwater's campaign. In 1968, she switched sides and campaigned for Democratic presidential nominee Eugene McCarthy. Incidentally, both of them lost.

Politics wasn't the first love of Hillary Clinton. She wanted to be an astronaut and even wrote to NASA regarding pursuing her dream. But NASA replied back saying they didn't accept women.

Apart from being the former First Lady, Hillary Clinton has several other "first" to her name. She is the first First Lady to have a post graduate degree and to be elected to national office. Additionally, she is also the first First Lady to be subpoenaed and fingerprinted by the FBI.

Hillary Clinton is a Grammy Award winner. She won the award in 1997 for Best Spoken Word Album for her audio recording of her book 'It Takes A Village'.

Hillary Clinton is the most traveled Secretary of State. During her four-year tenure, she visited 112 countries and spent roughly a quarter of her term in the air.

She was a member of the presidential impeachment inquiry staff during the Watergate scandal in 1974. As a result of the scandal, President Nixon resigned later that year.

Hillary Clinton has the unique distinction of being both senator and First Lady for 20 days. She held both these positions from Jan 1, 2001 to Jan 20, 2001. Thereafter Bill Clinton left the White House on Jan 20, 2001.

Hillary Clinton has quite a capacity to drink. She once out-drank John McCain during a tour of Estonia in 2004, when both of them were senators. Clinton beat McCain in the game of shots of vodka by a margin of four.

Hillary Clinton out-earned her husband Bill Clinton several times, when he was the Governor of Arkansas. At that time, she was working as a lawyer at a private firm.

This one might spook you out! Hillary Clinton had a habit of talking to dead persons. Famous journalist Bob Woodward mentioned in his book 'The Choice' that while in White House, Hillary Clinton chatted with former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and the Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi. These conversations were facilitated by Jean Houston, co-director of the Foundation for Mind Research.