Hillary Clinton, American politician who was the 67th United States Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton (born October 26, 1947) is an American politician who was the 67th United States Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013, U.S. Senator from New York from 2001 to 2009, First Lady of the United States from 1993 to 2001, and the Democratic Party’s nominee for President of the United States in the 2016 election.
Born in Chicago, Illinois and raised in the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge, Clinton graduated from Wellesley College in 1969, and earned a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1973.
After serving as a congressional legal counsel, she moved to Arkansas and married Bill Clinton in 1975. In 1977, she co-founded Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. She was appointed the first female chair of the Legal Services Corporation in 1978 and became the first woman partner at Rose Law Firm the following year. As First Lady of Arkansas, she led a task force whose recommendations helped reform Arkansas’s public schools.
As First Lady of the United States, Clinton fought for gender equality and healthcare reform. Because her marriage survived the Lewinsky scandal, her role as first lady drew a polarized response from the public. Clinton was elected in 2000 as the first female senator from New York. She was re-elected to the Senate in 2006. Running for president in 2008, she won far more delegates than any previous female candidate, but lost the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama.
As Secretary of State in the Obama administration from 2009 to 2013, Clinton responded to the Arab Spring, during which she advocated the U.S. military intervention in Libya. She helped organize a diplomatic isolation and international sanctions regime against Iran, in an effort to force curtailment of that country’s nuclear program; this would eventually lead to the multinational Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreement in 2015. Leaving office after Obama’s first term, she wrote her fifth book and undertook speaking engagements.
Clinton made a second presidential run in 2016. She received the most votes and primary delegates in the 2016 Democratic primaries, and formally accepted her party’s nomination for President of the United States on July 28, 2016 with vice presidential running mate Senator Tim Kaine. She became the first female candidate to be nominated for president by a major U.S. political party. Despite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, Clinton lost the Electoral College and the presidency to her Republican rival Donald Trump.
Words of Wisdom
The worst thing that can happen in a democracy — as well as in an individual's life — is to become cynical about the future and lose hope.