BILL CLINTON
Sign up for the Inside History newsletter
Bill Clinton
- HISTORY.COM EDITORS
- UPDATED:JUN 7, 2019ORIGINAL:NOV 9, 2009
Getty Images / JOYCE NALTCHAYAN / Staff
CONTENTS
- Bill Clinton: Early Life and Education
- Bill Clinton: Family, Arkansas Political Career and First Presidential Campaign
- Bill Clinton: First Presidential Term: 1993-1997
- Bill Clinton: Second Presidential Term: 1997-2001
- Bill Clinton: Post-Presidency
Bill Clinton (1946-), the 42nd U.S. president, served in office from 1993 to 2001. Prior to that, the Arkansas native and Democrat was governor of his home state. During Clinton’s time in the White House, America enjoyed an era of peace and prosperity, marked by low unemployment, declining crime rates and a budget surplus.
Clinton appointed a number of women and minorities to top government posts, including Janet Reno, the first female U.S. attorney general, and Madeleine Albright, the first female U.S. secretary of state. In 1998, the House of Representatives impeached Clinton on charges related to a sexual relationship he had with a White House intern. He was acquitted by the Senate. Following his presidency, Clinton remained active in public life.
Bill Clinton: Early Life and Education
Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946, in Hope, Arkansas. He was the only child of Virginia Cassidy Blythe (1923-94) and traveling salesman William Jefferson Blythe Jr. (1918-46), who died in a car accident three months before his son’s birth. In 1950, Virginia Blythe married car dealer Roger Clinton Sr. (1908-67) and the family later moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas. As a teen, Bill Clinton officially adopted his stepfather’s surname. His only sibling, Roger Clinton Jr., was born in 1956.
Did you know? In 2001, Clinton became the first president to be married to a U.S. senator. Just days before he left office, first lady Hillary Clinton was sworn in as the freshman senator from New York.
In 1964, Clinton graduated from Hot Springs High School, where he was a musician and student leader. (In 1963, as part of the American Legion Boys’ Nation program, he went to Washington, D.C., and shook hands with President John Kennedy at the White House, an event he later said inspired him to pursue a career in public service.) Clinton went on to earn a degree from Georgetown University in 1968. Afterward, he attended Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship. In 1973, he received a degree from Yale Law School.
At Yale, Clinton started dating fellow law student Hillary Rodham (1947-). After graduating, the couple moved to Clinton’s home state, where he worked as a law professor at the University of Arkansas. In 1974, Clinton, a Democrat, ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives but lost to his Republican opponent.
Bill Clinton: Family, Arkansas Political Career and First Presidential Campaign
On October 11, 1975, Clinton and Rodham were married in a small ceremony at their house in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The following year, Bill Clinton was elected attorney general of Arkansas. In 1978, he was elected governor of the state. The Clintons’ only child, Chelsea, was born in February 1980. That fall, Clinton lost his bid for re-election as governor. Afterward, he joined a Little Rock law firm.
In 1982, he won the governorship again and would remain in that office through 1992. While serving as Arkansas’ first lady, Hillary Clinton also worked as an attorney.
After winning the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992, Clinton, along with vice-presidential nominee Al Gore (1948-), a U.S. senator from Tennessee, went on to defeat the incumbent, President George H.W. Bush (1924-), by a margin of 370-168 electoral votes and with 43 percent of the popular vote to Bush’s 37.5 percent of the vote. A third-party candidate, Ross Perot (1930-), captured almost 19 percent of the popular vote.
Recommended for you
How an African Prince Who Was Kidnapped Into Slavery Outsmarted His Captors
The ‘Father of Modern Gynecology’ Performed Shocking Experiments on Enslaved Women
America’s Forgotten Mass Imprisonment of Women Believed to Be Sexually Immoral
Bill Clinton: First Presidential Term: 1993-1997
Clinton was inaugurated in January 1993 at age 46, making him the third-youngest president in history up to that time. During his first term, Clinton enacted a variety of pieces of domestic legislation, including the Family and Medical Leave Act and the Violence Against Women Act, along with key bills pertaining to crime and gun violence, education, the environment and welfare reform.
He put forth measures to reduce the federal budget deficit and also signed the North American Free Trade Agreement, which eliminated trade barriers between the United States, Canada and Mexico. He attempted to enact universal health insurance for all Americans, and appointed first lady Hillary Clinton to head the committee charged with creating the plan. However, the committee’s plan was opposed by conservatives and the health care industry, among others, and Congress ultimately failed to act on it.
Clinton appointed a number of women and minorities to key government posts, including Janet Reno (1938-), who became the first female U.S. attorney general in 1993, and Madeleine Albright (1937-), who was sworn in as the first female U.S. secretary of state in 1997. He appointed Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933-) to the Supreme Court in 1993. She was the second female justice in the court’s history. Clinton’s other Supreme Court nominee, Stephen Breyer (1938-), joined the court in 1994.
On the foreign policy front, the Clinton administration helped bring about the 1994 reinstatement of Haiti’s democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1953-). In 1995, the administration brokered the Dayton Accords, which ended the war in Bosnia.
Clinton ran for re-election in 1996 and defeated U.S. Senator Bob Dole (1923-) of Kansas by a margin of 379-159 electoral votes and with 49.2 percent of the popular vote to Dole’s 40.7 percent of the vote. (Third-party candidate Ross Perot garnered 8.4 percent of the popular vote.) Clinton’s victory marked the first time since Franklin Roosevelt (1882-1945) that a Democrat was elected to a second presidential term
Bill Clinton: Second Presidential Term: 1997-2001
During Clinton’s second term, the U.S. economy was healthy, unemployment was low and the nation experienced a major technology boom and the rise of the Internet. In 1998, the United States achieved its first federal budget surplus in three decades (the final two years of Clinton’s presidency also resulted in budget surpluses). In 2000, the president signed legislation establishing permanent normal trade relations with China.
Additionally, the Clinton administration helped broker a peace accord in Northern Ireland in 1998. That same year, America launched air attacks against Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs. In 1999, the United States led a NATO effort to end ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.
In the midst of these events, Clinton’s second term was marred by scandal. On December 19, 1998, the U.S. House of Representatives impeached him for perjury and obstruction of justice in connection with a sexual relationship he had with White House intern Monica Lewinsky (1973-) between late 1995 and early 1997. On February 12, 1999, the U.S. Senate acquitted the president of the charges and he remained in office. Clinton was the second American president to be impeached. The first, Andrew Johnson (1808-75), was impeached in 1868 and also later acquitted
Bill Clinton: Post-Presidency
After leaving the White House, Clinton remained active in public life, establishing the William J. Clinton Foundation to combat poverty, disease and other global issues.
The William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park in Little Rock, Arkansas, opened in 2004. That same year, Clinton released his autobiography, “My Life,” which became a best-seller. He also campaigned for his wife, who was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York in 2000. In 2008, Hillary Clinton ran for the Democratic presidential nomination but lost to Barack Obama (1961-), who named her secretary of state when he became president.
Citation Information
Article Title
Bill Clinton
AuthorHistory.com Editors
Website Name
HISTORY
URL
Access Date
January 24, 2022
Publisher
A&E Television Networks
Last Updated
January 19, 2022
Original Published Date
November 9, 2009BY HISTORY.COM EDITORS
FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn’t look right, click here to contact us!
VIDEOS
Clinton Denies Sexual Relationship
Clinton’s First Inaugural Address
Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present.SIGN UP
RELATED CONTENT
Hillary Rodham Clinton (1947-) helped define the role of the modern political spouse and was one of the most accomplished first ladies in American history. A trained lawyer, she built a thriving career in the public and private sector, which she balanced with family life …read more
After the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the Founding Fathers turned to the composition of the states’ and then the federal Constitution. Although a Bill of Rights to protect the citizens was not initially deemed important, the Constitution’s supporters realized it was …read more
Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States and the first African American president, was elected over Senator John McCain of Arizona on November 4, 2008. Obama, a former senator from Illinois whose campaign’s slogan was “Change we can believe in” and “Yes we can,” was …read more
Officially the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, the G.I. Bill was created to help veterans of World War II. It established hospitals, made low-interest mortgages available and granted stipends covering tuition and expenses for veterans attending college or trade schools. …read more
New York City real estate developer and reality TV star Donald Trump (1946- ) served as America’s 45th president from January 2017-January 2021. The billionaire businessman ran as a Republican and scored an upset victory over his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, in the 2016 …read more
Departing from the monarchical tradition of Britain, the founding fathers of the United States created a system in which the American people had the power and responsibility to select their leader. Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution establishes the Executive Branch …read more
George W. Bush (1946-), America’s 43rd president, served in office from 2001 to 2009. Before entering the White House, Bush, the oldest son of George H.W. Bush, the 41st U.S. president, was a two-term Republican governor of Texas. A graduate of Yale University and Harvard …read more
Born in poverty, Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) had become a wealthy Tennessee lawyer and rising young politician by 1812, when war broke out between the United States and Britain. His leadership in that conflict earned Jackson national fame as a military hero, and he would become …read more
Andrew Johnson (1808-1875), the 17th U.S. president, assumed office after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865). Johnson, who served from 1865 to 1869, was the first American president to be impeached. A tailor before he entered politics, Johnson grew up poor and …read moreSEE MORE
- Ad Choices
- Advertise
- Closed Captioning
- Copyright Policy
- Corporate Information
- Employment Opportunities
- FAQ/Contact Us
- Privacy Notice
- Terms of Use
- TV Parental Guidelines
- RSS Feeds
- Accessibility Support
© 2022 A&E Television Networks, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Sign up for the Inside History newsletter
Bill Clinton
- HISTORY.COM EDITORS
- UPDATED:JUN 7, 2019ORIGINAL:NOV 9, 2009
Getty Images / JOYCE NALTCHAYAN / Staff
CONTENTS
- Bill Clinton: Early Life and Education
- Bill Clinton: Family, Arkansas Political Career and First Presidential Campaign
- Bill Clinton: First Presidential Term: 1993-1997
- Bill Clinton: Second Presidential Term: 1997-2001
- Bill Clinton: Post-Presidency
Bill Clinton (1946-), the 42nd U.S. president, served in office from 1993 to 2001. Prior to that, the Arkansas native and Democrat was governor of his home state. During Clinton’s time in the White House, America enjoyed an era of peace and prosperity, marked by low unemployment, declining crime rates and a budget surplus.
Clinton appointed a number of women and minorities to top government posts, including Janet Reno, the first female U.S. attorney general, and Madeleine Albright, the first female U.S. secretary of state. In 1998, the House of Representatives impeached Clinton on charges related to a sexual relationship he had with a White House intern. He was acquitted by the Senate. Following his presidency, Clinton remained active in public life.
Bill Clinton: Early Life and Education
Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946, in Hope, Arkansas. He was the only child of Virginia Cassidy Blythe (1923-94) and traveling salesman William Jefferson Blythe Jr. (1918-46), who died in a car accident three months before his son’s birth. In 1950, Virginia Blythe married car dealer Roger Clinton Sr. (1908-67) and the family later moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas. As a teen, Bill Clinton officially adopted his stepfather’s surname. His only sibling, Roger Clinton Jr., was born in 1956.
Did you know? In 2001, Clinton became the first president to be married to a U.S. senator. Just days before he left office, first lady Hillary Clinton was sworn in as the freshman senator from New York.
In 1964, Clinton graduated from Hot Springs High School, where he was a musician and student leader. (In 1963, as part of the American Legion Boys’ Nation program, he went to Washington, D.C., and shook hands with President John Kennedy at the White House, an event he later said inspired him to pursue a career in public service.) Clinton went on to earn a degree from Georgetown University in 1968. Afterward, he attended Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship. In 1973, he received a degree from Yale Law School.
At Yale, Clinton started dating fellow law student Hillary Rodham (1947-). After graduating, the couple moved to Clinton’s home state, where he worked as a law professor at the University of Arkansas. In 1974, Clinton, a Democrat, ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives but lost to his Republican opponent.
Bill Clinton: Family, Arkansas Political Career and First Presidential Campaign
On October 11, 1975, Clinton and Rodham were married in a small ceremony at their house in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The following year, Bill Clinton was elected attorney general of Arkansas. In 1978, he was elected governor of the state. The Clintons’ only child, Chelsea, was born in February 1980. That fall, Clinton lost his bid for re-election as governor. Afterward, he joined a Little Rock law firm.
In 1982, he won the governorship again and would remain in that office through 1992. While serving as Arkansas’ first lady, Hillary Clinton also worked as an attorney.
After winning the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992, Clinton, along with vice-presidential nominee Al Gore (1948-), a U.S. senator from Tennessee, went on to defeat the incumbent, President George H.W. Bush (1924-), by a margin of 370-168 electoral votes and with 43 percent of the popular vote to Bush’s 37.5 percent of the vote. A third-party candidate, Ross Perot (1930-), captured almost 19 percent of the popular vote.
Recommended for you
How an African Prince Who Was Kidnapped Into Slavery Outsmarted His Captors
The ‘Father of Modern Gynecology’ Performed Shocking Experiments on Enslaved Women
America’s Forgotten Mass Imprisonment of Women Believed to Be Sexually Immoral
Bill Clinton: First Presidential Term: 1993-1997
Clinton was inaugurated in January 1993 at age 46, making him the third-youngest president in history up to that time. During his first term, Clinton enacted a variety of pieces of domestic legislation, including the Family and Medical Leave Act and the Violence Against Women Act, along with key bills pertaining to crime and gun violence, education, the environment and welfare reform.
He put forth measures to reduce the federal budget deficit and also signed the North American Free Trade Agreement, which eliminated trade barriers between the United States, Canada and Mexico. He attempted to enact universal health insurance for all Americans, and appointed first lady Hillary Clinton to head the committee charged with creating the plan. However, the committee’s plan was opposed by conservatives and the health care industry, among others, and Congress ultimately failed to act on it.
Clinton appointed a number of women and minorities to key government posts, including Janet Reno (1938-), who became the first female U.S. attorney general in 1993, and Madeleine Albright (1937-), who was sworn in as the first female U.S. secretary of state in 1997. He appointed Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933-) to the Supreme Court in 1993. She was the second female justice in the court’s history. Clinton’s other Supreme Court nominee, Stephen Breyer (1938-), joined the court in 1994.
On the foreign policy front, the Clinton administration helped bring about the 1994 reinstatement of Haiti’s democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1953-). In 1995, the administration brokered the Dayton Accords, which ended the war in Bosnia.
Clinton ran for re-election in 1996 and defeated U.S. Senator Bob Dole (1923-) of Kansas by a margin of 379-159 electoral votes and with 49.2 percent of the popular vote to Dole’s 40.7 percent of the vote. (Third-party candidate Ross Perot garnered 8.4 percent of the popular vote.) Clinton’s victory marked the first time since Franklin Roosevelt (1882-1945) that a Democrat was elected to a second presidential term
Bill Clinton: Second Presidential Term: 1997-2001
During Clinton’s second term, the U.S. economy was healthy, unemployment was low and the nation experienced a major technology boom and the rise of the Internet. In 1998, the United States achieved its first federal budget surplus in three decades (the final two years of Clinton’s presidency also resulted in budget surpluses). In 2000, the president signed legislation establishing permanent normal trade relations with China.
Additionally, the Clinton administration helped broker a peace accord in Northern Ireland in 1998. That same year, America launched air attacks against Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs. In 1999, the United States led a NATO effort to end ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.
In the midst of these events, Clinton’s second term was marred by scandal. On December 19, 1998, the U.S. House of Representatives impeached him for perjury and obstruction of justice in connection with a sexual relationship he had with White House intern Monica Lewinsky (1973-) between late 1995 and early 1997. On February 12, 1999, the U.S. Senate acquitted the president of the charges and he remained in office. Clinton was the second American president to be impeached. The first, Andrew Johnson (1808-75), was impeached in 1868 and also later acquitted
Bill Clinton: Post-Presidency
After leaving the White House, Clinton remained active in public life, establishing the William J. Clinton Foundation to combat poverty, disease and other global issues.
The William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park in Little Rock, Arkansas, opened in 2004. That same year, Clinton released his autobiography, “My Life,” which became a best-seller. He also campaigned for his wife, who was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York in 2000. In 2008, Hillary Clinton ran for the Democratic presidential nomination but lost to Barack Obama (1961-), who named her secretary of state when he became president.
Citation Information
Article Title
Bill Clinton
AuthorHistory.com Editors
Website Name
HISTORY
URL
Access Date
January 24, 2022
Publisher
A&E Television Networks
Last Updated
January 19, 2022
Original Published Date
November 9, 2009BY HISTORY.COM EDITORS
FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn’t look right, click here to contact us!
VIDEOS
Clinton Denies Sexual Relationship
Clinton’s First Inaugural Address
Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present.SIGN UP
RELATED CONTENT
Hillary Rodham Clinton (1947-) helped define the role of the modern political spouse and was one of the most accomplished first ladies in American history. A trained lawyer, she built a thriving career in the public and private sector, which she balanced with family life …read more
After the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the Founding Fathers turned to the composition of the states’ and then the federal Constitution. Although a Bill of Rights to protect the citizens was not initially deemed important, the Constitution’s supporters realized it was …read more
Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States and the first African American president, was elected over Senator John McCain of Arizona on November 4, 2008. Obama, a former senator from Illinois whose campaign’s slogan was “Change we can believe in” and “Yes we can,” was …read more
Officially the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, the G.I. Bill was created to help veterans of World War II. It established hospitals, made low-interest mortgages available and granted stipends covering tuition and expenses for veterans attending college or trade schools. …read more
New York City real estate developer and reality TV star Donald Trump (1946- ) served as America’s 45th president from January 2017-January 2021. The billionaire businessman ran as a Republican and scored an upset victory over his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, in the 2016 …read more
Departing from the monarchical tradition of Britain, the founding fathers of the United States created a system in which the American people had the power and responsibility to select their leader. Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution establishes the Executive Branch …read more
George W. Bush (1946-), America’s 43rd president, served in office from 2001 to 2009. Before entering the White House, Bush, the oldest son of George H.W. Bush, the 41st U.S. president, was a two-term Republican governor of Texas. A graduate of Yale University and Harvard …read more
Born in poverty, Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) had become a wealthy Tennessee lawyer and rising young politician by 1812, when war broke out between the United States and Britain. His leadership in that conflict earned Jackson national fame as a military hero, and he would become …read more
Andrew Johnson (1808-1875), the 17th U.S. president, assumed office after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865). Johnson, who served from 1865 to 1869, was the first American president to be impeached. A tailor before he entered politics, Johnson grew up poor and …read moreSEE MORE
- Ad Choices
- Advertise
- Closed Captioning
- Copyright Policy
- Corporate Information
- Employment Opportunities
- FAQ/Contact Us
- Privacy Notice
- Terms of Use
- TV Parental Guidelines
- RSS Feeds
- Accessibility Support
© 2022 A&E Television Networks, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Sign up for the Inside History newsletter
Bill Clinton
- HISTORY.COM EDITORS
- UPDATED:JUN 7, 2019ORIGINAL:NOV 9, 2009
Getty Images / JOYCE NALTCHAYAN / Staff
CONTENTS
- Bill Clinton: Early Life and Education
- Bill Clinton: Family, Arkansas Political Career and First Presidential Campaign
- Bill Clinton: First Presidential Term: 1993-1997
- Bill Clinton: Second Presidential Term: 1997-2001
- Bill Clinton: Post-Presidency
Bill Clinton (1946-), the 42nd U.S. president, served in office from 1993 to 2001. Prior to that, the Arkansas native and Democrat was governor of his home state. During Clinton’s time in the White House, America enjoyed an era of peace and prosperity, marked by low unemployment, declining crime rates and a budget surplus.
Clinton appointed a number of women and minorities to top government posts, including Janet Reno, the first female U.S. attorney general, and Madeleine Albright, the first female U.S. secretary of state. In 1998, the House of Representatives impeached Clinton on charges related to a sexual relationship he had with a White House intern. He was acquitted by the Senate. Following his presidency, Clinton remained active in public life.
Bill Clinton: Early Life and Education
Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946, in Hope, Arkansas. He was the only child of Virginia Cassidy Blythe (1923-94) and traveling salesman William Jefferson Blythe Jr. (1918-46), who died in a car accident three months before his son’s birth. In 1950, Virginia Blythe married car dealer Roger Clinton Sr. (1908-67) and the family later moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas. As a teen, Bill Clinton officially adopted his stepfather’s surname. His only sibling, Roger Clinton Jr., was born in 1956.
Did you know? In 2001, Clinton became the first president to be married to a U.S. senator. Just days before he left office, first lady Hillary Clinton was sworn in as the freshman senator from New York.
In 1964, Clinton graduated from Hot Springs High School, where he was a musician and student leader. (In 1963, as part of the American Legion Boys’ Nation program, he went to Washington, D.C., and shook hands with President John Kennedy at the White House, an event he later said inspired him to pursue a career in public service.) Clinton went on to earn a degree from Georgetown University in 1968. Afterward, he attended Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship. In 1973, he received a degree from Yale Law School.
At Yale, Clinton started dating fellow law student Hillary Rodham (1947-). After graduating, the couple moved to Clinton’s home state, where he worked as a law professor at the University of Arkansas. In 1974, Clinton, a Democrat, ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives but lost to his Republican opponent.
Bill Clinton: Family, Arkansas Political Career and First Presidential Campaign
On October 11, 1975, Clinton and Rodham were married in a small ceremony at their house in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The following year, Bill Clinton was elected attorney general of Arkansas. In 1978, he was elected governor of the state. The Clintons’ only child, Chelsea, was born in February 1980. That fall, Clinton lost his bid for re-election as governor. Afterward, he joined a Little Rock law firm.
In 1982, he won the governorship again and would remain in that office through 1992. While serving as Arkansas’ first lady, Hillary Clinton also worked as an attorney.
After winning the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992, Clinton, along with vice-presidential nominee Al Gore (1948-), a U.S. senator from Tennessee, went on to defeat the incumbent, President George H.W. Bush (1924-), by a margin of 370-168 electoral votes and with 43 percent of the popular vote to Bush’s 37.5 percent of the vote. A third-party candidate, Ross Perot (1930-), captured almost 19 percent of the popular vote.
Recommended for you
How an African Prince Who Was Kidnapped Into Slavery Outsmarted His Captors
The ‘Father of Modern Gynecology’ Performed Shocking Experiments on Enslaved Women
America’s Forgotten Mass Imprisonment of Women Believed to Be Sexually Immoral
Bill Clinton: First Presidential Term: 1993-1997
Clinton was inaugurated in January 1993 at age 46, making him the third-youngest president in history up to that time. During his first term, Clinton enacted a variety of pieces of domestic legislation, including the Family and Medical Leave Act and the Violence Against Women Act, along with key bills pertaining to crime and gun violence, education, the environment and welfare reform.
He put forth measures to reduce the federal budget deficit and also signed the North American Free Trade Agreement, which eliminated trade barriers between the United States, Canada and Mexico. He attempted to enact universal health insurance for all Americans, and appointed first lady Hillary Clinton to head the committee charged with creating the plan. However, the committee’s plan was opposed by conservatives and the health care industry, among others, and Congress ultimately failed to act on it.
Clinton appointed a number of women and minorities to key government posts, including Janet Reno (1938-), who became the first female U.S. attorney general in 1993, and Madeleine Albright (1937-), who was sworn in as the first female U.S. secretary of state in 1997. He appointed Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933-) to the Supreme Court in 1993. She was the second female justice in the court’s history. Clinton’s other Supreme Court nominee, Stephen Breyer (1938-), joined the court in 1994.
On the foreign policy front, the Clinton administration helped bring about the 1994 reinstatement of Haiti’s democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1953-). In 1995, the administration brokered the Dayton Accords, which ended the war in Bosnia.
Clinton ran for re-election in 1996 and defeated U.S. Senator Bob Dole (1923-) of Kansas by a margin of 379-159 electoral votes and with 49.2 percent of the popular vote to Dole’s 40.7 percent of the vote. (Third-party candidate Ross Perot garnered 8.4 percent of the popular vote.) Clinton’s victory marked the first time since Franklin Roosevelt (1882-1945) that a Democrat was elected to a second presidential term
Bill Clinton: Second Presidential Term: 1997-2001
During Clinton’s second term, the U.S. economy was healthy, unemployment was low and the nation experienced a major technology boom and the rise of the Internet. In 1998, the United States achieved its first federal budget surplus in three decades (the final two years of Clinton’s presidency also resulted in budget surpluses). In 2000, the president signed legislation establishing permanent normal trade relations with China.
Additionally, the Clinton administration helped broker a peace accord in Northern Ireland in 1998. That same year, America launched air attacks against Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs. In 1999, the United States led a NATO effort to end ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.
In the midst of these events, Clinton’s second term was marred by scandal. On December 19, 1998, the U.S. House of Representatives impeached him for perjury and obstruction of justice in connection with a sexual relationship he had with White House intern Monica Lewinsky (1973-) between late 1995 and early 1997. On February 12, 1999, the U.S. Senate acquitted the president of the charges and he remained in office. Clinton was the second American president to be impeached. The first, Andrew Johnson (1808-75), was impeached in 1868 and also later acquitted
Bill Clinton: Post-Presidency
After leaving the White House, Clinton remained active in public life, establishing the William J. Clinton Foundation to combat poverty, disease and other global issues.
The William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park in Little Rock, Arkansas, opened in 2004. That same year, Clinton released his autobiography, “My Life,” which became a best-seller. He also campaigned for his wife, who was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York in 2000. In 2008, Hillary Clinton ran for the Democratic presidential nomination but lost to Barack Obama (1961-), who named her secretary of state when he became president.
Citation Information
Article Title
Bill Clinton
AuthorHistory.com Editors
Website Name
HISTORY
URL
Access Date
January 24, 2022
Publisher
A&E Television Networks
Last Updated
January 19, 2022
Original Published Date
November 9, 2009BY HISTORY.COM EDITORS
FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn’t look right, click here to contact us!
VIDEOS
Clinton Denies Sexual Relationship
Clinton’s First Inaugural Address
Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present.SIGN UP
RELATED CONTENT
Hillary Rodham Clinton (1947-) helped define the role of the modern political spouse and was one of the most accomplished first ladies in American history. A trained lawyer, she built a thriving career in the public and private sector, which she balanced with family life …read more
After the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the Founding Fathers turned to the composition of the states’ and then the federal Constitution. Although a Bill of Rights to protect the citizens was not initially deemed important, the Constitution’s supporters realized it was …read more
Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States and the first African American president, was elected over Senator John McCain of Arizona on November 4, 2008. Obama, a former senator from Illinois whose campaign’s slogan was “Change we can believe in” and “Yes we can,” was …read more
Officially the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, the G.I. Bill was created to help veterans of World War II. It established hospitals, made low-interest mortgages available and granted stipends covering tuition and expenses for veterans attending college or trade schools. …read more
New York City real estate developer and reality TV star Donald Trump (1946- ) served as America’s 45th president from January 2017-January 2021. The billionaire businessman ran as a Republican and scored an upset victory over his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, in the 2016 …read more
Departing from the monarchical tradition of Britain, the founding fathers of the United States created a system in which the American people had the power and responsibility to select their leader. Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution establishes the Executive Branch …read more
George W. Bush (1946-), America’s 43rd president, served in office from 2001 to 2009. Before entering the White House, Bush, the oldest son of George H.W. Bush, the 41st U.S. president, was a two-term Republican governor of Texas. A graduate of Yale University and Harvard …read more
Born in poverty, Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) had become a wealthy Tennessee lawyer and rising young politician by 1812, when war broke out between the United States and Britain. His leadership in that conflict earned Jackson national fame as a military hero, and he would become …read more
Andrew Johnson (1808-1875), the 17th U.S. president, assumed office after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865). Johnson, who served from 1865 to 1869, was the first American president to be impeached. A tailor before he entered politics, Johnson grew up poor and …read moreSEE MORE
- Ad Choices
- Advertise
- Closed Captioning
- Copyright Policy
- Corporate Information
- Employment Opportunities
- FAQ/Contact Us
- Privacy Notice
- Terms of Use
- TV Parental Guidelines
- RSS Feeds
- Accessibility Support
© 2022 A&E Television Networks, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Sign up for the Inside History newsletter
Bill Clinton
- HISTORY.COM EDITORS
- UPDATED:JUN 7, 2019ORIGINAL:NOV 9, 2009
Getty Images / JOYCE NALTCHAYAN / Staff
CONTENTS
- Bill Clinton: Early Life and Education
- Bill Clinton: Family, Arkansas Political Career and First Presidential Campaign
- Bill Clinton: First Presidential Term: 1993-1997
- Bill Clinton: Second Presidential Term: 1997-2001
- Bill Clinton: Post-Presidency
Bill Clinton (1946-), the 42nd U.S. president, served in office from 1993 to 2001. Prior to that, the Arkansas native and Democrat was governor of his home state. During Clinton’s time in the White House, America enjoyed an era of peace and prosperity, marked by low unemployment, declining crime rates and a budget surplus.
Clinton appointed a number of women and minorities to top government posts, including Janet Reno, the first female U.S. attorney general, and Madeleine Albright, the first female U.S. secretary of state. In 1998, the House of Representatives impeached Clinton on charges related to a sexual relationship he had with a White House intern. He was acquitted by the Senate. Following his presidency, Clinton remained active in public life.
Bill Clinton: Early Life and Education
Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946, in Hope, Arkansas. He was the only child of Virginia Cassidy Blythe (1923-94) and traveling salesman William Jefferson Blythe Jr. (1918-46), who died in a car accident three months before his son’s birth. In 1950, Virginia Blythe married car dealer Roger Clinton Sr. (1908-67) and the family later moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas. As a teen, Bill Clinton officially adopted his stepfather’s surname. His only sibling, Roger Clinton Jr., was born in 1956.
Did you know? In 2001, Clinton became the first president to be married to a U.S. senator. Just days before he left office, first lady Hillary Clinton was sworn in as the freshman senator from New York.
In 1964, Clinton graduated from Hot Springs High School, where he was a musician and student leader. (In 1963, as part of the American Legion Boys’ Nation program, he went to Washington, D.C., and shook hands with President John Kennedy at the White House, an event he later said inspired him to pursue a career in public service.) Clinton went on to earn a degree from Georgetown University in 1968. Afterward, he attended Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship. In 1973, he received a degree from Yale Law School.
At Yale, Clinton started dating fellow law student Hillary Rodham (1947-). After graduating, the couple moved to Clinton’s home state, where he worked as a law professor at the University of Arkansas. In 1974, Clinton, a Democrat, ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives but lost to his Republican opponent.
Bill Clinton: Family, Arkansas Political Career and First Presidential Campaign
On October 11, 1975, Clinton and Rodham were married in a small ceremony at their house in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The following year, Bill Clinton was elected attorney general of Arkansas. In 1978, he was elected governor of the state. The Clintons’ only child, Chelsea, was born in February 1980. That fall, Clinton lost his bid for re-election as governor. Afterward, he joined a Little Rock law firm.
In 1982, he won the governorship again and would remain in that office through 1992. While serving as Arkansas’ first lady, Hillary Clinton also worked as an attorney.
After winning the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992, Clinton, along with vice-presidential nominee Al Gore (1948-), a U.S. senator from Tennessee, went on to defeat the incumbent, President George H.W. Bush (1924-), by a margin of 370-168 electoral votes and with 43 percent of the popular vote to Bush’s 37.5 percent of the vote. A third-party candidate, Ross Perot (1930-), captured almost 19 percent of the popular vote.
Recommended for you
How an African Prince Who Was Kidnapped Into Slavery Outsmarted His Captors
The ‘Father of Modern Gynecology’ Performed Shocking Experiments on Enslaved Women
America’s Forgotten Mass Imprisonment of Women Believed to Be Sexually Immoral
Bill Clinton: First Presidential Term: 1993-1997
Clinton was inaugurated in January 1993 at age 46, making him the third-youngest president in history up to that time. During his first term, Clinton enacted a variety of pieces of domestic legislation, including the Family and Medical Leave Act and the Violence Against Women Act, along with key bills pertaining to crime and gun violence, education, the environment and welfare reform.
He put forth measures to reduce the federal budget deficit and also signed the North American Free Trade Agreement, which eliminated trade barriers between the United States, Canada and Mexico. He attempted to enact universal health insurance for all Americans, and appointed first lady Hillary Clinton to head the committee charged with creating the plan. However, the committee’s plan was opposed by conservatives and the health care industry, among others, and Congress ultimately failed to act on it.
Clinton appointed a number of women and minorities to key government posts, including Janet Reno (1938-), who became the first female U.S. attorney general in 1993, and Madeleine Albright (1937-), who was sworn in as the first female U.S. secretary of state in 1997. He appointed Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933-) to the Supreme Court in 1993. She was the second female justice in the court’s history. Clinton’s other Supreme Court nominee, Stephen Breyer (1938-), joined the court in 1994.
On the foreign policy front, the Clinton administration helped bring about the 1994 reinstatement of Haiti’s democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1953-). In 1995, the administration brokered the Dayton Accords, which ended the war in Bosnia.
Clinton ran for re-election in 1996 and defeated U.S. Senator Bob Dole (1923-) of Kansas by a margin of 379-159 electoral votes and with 49.2 percent of the popular vote to Dole’s 40.7 percent of the vote. (Third-party candidate Ross Perot garnered 8.4 percent of the popular vote.) Clinton’s victory marked the first time since Franklin Roosevelt (1882-1945) that a Democrat was elected to a second presidential term
Bill Clinton: Second Presidential Term: 1997-2001
During Clinton’s second term, the U.S. economy was healthy, unemployment was low and the nation experienced a major technology boom and the rise of the Internet. In 1998, the United States achieved its first federal budget surplus in three decades (the final two years of Clinton’s presidency also resulted in budget surpluses). In 2000, the president signed legislation establishing permanent normal trade relations with China.
Additionally, the Clinton administration helped broker a peace accord in Northern Ireland in 1998. That same year, America launched air attacks against Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs. In 1999, the United States led a NATO effort to end ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.
In the midst of these events, Clinton’s second term was marred by scandal. On December 19, 1998, the U.S. House of Representatives impeached him for perjury and obstruction of justice in connection with a sexual relationship he had with White House intern Monica Lewinsky (1973-) between late 1995 and early 1997. On February 12, 1999, the U.S. Senate acquitted the president of the charges and he remained in office. Clinton was the second American president to be impeached. The first, Andrew Johnson (1808-75), was impeached in 1868 and also later acquitted
Bill Clinton: Post-Presidency
After leaving the White House, Clinton remained active in public life, establishing the William J. Clinton Foundation to combat poverty, disease and other global issues.
The William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park in Little Rock, Arkansas, opened in 2004. That same year, Clinton released his autobiography, “My Life,” which became a best-seller. He also campaigned for his wife, who was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York in 2000. In 2008, Hillary Clinton ran for the Democratic presidential nomination but lost to Barack Obama (1961-), who named her secretary of state when he became president.
Citation Information
Article Title
Bill Clinton
AuthorHistory.com Editors
Website Name
HISTORY
URL
Access Date
January 24, 2022
Publisher
A&E Television Networks
Last Updated
January 19, 2022
Original Published Date
November 9, 2009BY HISTORY.COM EDITORS
FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn’t look right, click here to contact us!
VIDEOS
Clinton Denies Sexual Relationship
Clinton’s First Inaugural Address
Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present.SIGN UP
RELATED CONTENT
Hillary Rodham Clinton (1947-) helped define the role of the modern political spouse and was one of the most accomplished first ladies in American history. A trained lawyer, she built a thriving career in the public and private sector, which she balanced with family life …read more
After the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the Founding Fathers turned to the composition of the states’ and then the federal Constitution. Although a Bill of Rights to protect the citizens was not initially deemed important, the Constitution’s supporters realized it was …read more
Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States and the first African American president, was elected over Senator John McCain of Arizona on November 4, 2008. Obama, a former senator from Illinois whose campaign’s slogan was “Change we can believe in” and “Yes we can,” was …read more
Officially the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, the G.I. Bill was created to help veterans of World War II. It established hospitals, made low-interest mortgages available and granted stipends covering tuition and expenses for veterans attending college or trade schools. …read more
New York City real estate developer and reality TV star Donald Trump (1946- ) served as America’s 45th president from January 2017-January 2021. The billionaire businessman ran as a Republican and scored an upset victory over his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, in the 2016 …read more
Departing from the monarchical tradition of Britain, the founding fathers of the United States created a system in which the American people had the power and responsibility to select their leader. Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution establishes the Executive Branch …read more
George W. Bush (1946-), America’s 43rd president, served in office from 2001 to 2009. Before entering the White House, Bush, the oldest son of George H.W. Bush, the 41st U.S. president, was a two-term Republican governor of Texas. A graduate of Yale University and Harvard …read more
Born in poverty, Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) had become a wealthy Tennessee lawyer and rising young politician by 1812, when war broke out between the United States and Britain. His leadership in that conflict earned Jackson national fame as a military hero, and he would become …read more
Andrew Johnson (1808-1875), the 17th U.S. president, assumed office after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865). Johnson, who served from 1865 to 1869, was the first American president to be impeached. A tailor before he entered politics, Johnson grew up poor and …read moreSEE MORE
- Ad Choices
- Advertise
- Closed Captioning
- Copyright Policy
- Corporate Information
- Employment Opportunities
- FAQ/Contact Us
- Privacy Notice
- Terms of Use
- TV Parental Guidelines
- RSS Feeds
- Accessibility Support
© 2022 A&E Television Networks, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Sign up for the Inside History newsletter
Bill Clinton
- HISTORY.COM EDITORS
- UPDATED:JUN 7, 2019ORIGINAL:NOV 9, 2009
Getty Images / JOYCE NALTCHAYAN / Staff
CONTENTS
- Bill Clinton: Early Life and Education
- Bill Clinton: Family, Arkansas Political Career and First Presidential Campaign
- Bill Clinton: First Presidential Term: 1993-1997
- Bill Clinton: Second Presidential Term: 1997-2001
- Bill Clinton: Post-Presidency
Bill Clinton (1946-), the 42nd U.S. president, served in office from 1993 to 2001. Prior to that, the Arkansas native and Democrat was governor of his home state. During Clinton’s time in the White House, America enjoyed an era of peace and prosperity, marked by low unemployment, declining crime rates and a budget surplus.
Clinton appointed a number of women and minorities to top government posts, including Janet Reno, the first female U.S. attorney general, and Madeleine Albright, the first female U.S. secretary of state. In 1998, the House of Representatives impeached Clinton on charges related to a sexual relationship he had with a White House intern. He was acquitted by the Senate. Following his presidency, Clinton remained active in public life.
Bill Clinton: Early Life and Education
Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946, in Hope, Arkansas. He was the only child of Virginia Cassidy Blythe (1923-94) and traveling salesman William Jefferson Blythe Jr. (1918-46), who died in a car accident three months before his son’s birth. In 1950, Virginia Blythe married car dealer Roger Clinton Sr. (1908-67) and the family later moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas. As a teen, Bill Clinton officially adopted his stepfather’s surname. His only sibling, Roger Clinton Jr., was born in 1956.
Did you know? In 2001, Clinton became the first president to be married to a U.S. senator. Just days before he left office, first lady Hillary Clinton was sworn in as the freshman senator from New York.
In 1964, Clinton graduated from Hot Springs High School, where he was a musician and student leader. (In 1963, as part of the American Legion Boys’ Nation program, he went to Washington, D.C., and shook hands with President John Kennedy at the White House, an event he later said inspired him to pursue a career in public service.) Clinton went on to earn a degree from Georgetown University in 1968. Afterward, he attended Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship. In 1973, he received a degree from Yale Law School.
At Yale, Clinton started dating fellow law student Hillary Rodham (1947-). After graduating, the couple moved to Clinton’s home state, where he worked as a law professor at the University of Arkansas. In 1974, Clinton, a Democrat, ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives but lost to his Republican opponent.
Bill Clinton: Family, Arkansas Political Career and First Presidential Campaign
On October 11, 1975, Clinton and Rodham were married in a small ceremony at their house in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The following year, Bill Clinton was elected attorney general of Arkansas. In 1978, he was elected governor of the state. The Clintons’ only child, Chelsea, was born in February 1980. That fall, Clinton lost his bid for re-election as governor. Afterward, he joined a Little Rock law firm.
In 1982, he won the governorship again and would remain in that office through 1992. While serving as Arkansas’ first lady, Hillary Clinton also worked as an attorney.
After winning the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992, Clinton, along with vice-presidential nominee Al Gore (1948-), a U.S. senator from Tennessee, went on to defeat the incumbent, President George H.W. Bush (1924-), by a margin of 370-168 electoral votes and with 43 percent of the popular vote to Bush’s 37.5 percent of the vote. A third-party candidate, Ross Perot (1930-), captured almost 19 percent of the popular vote.
Recommended for you
How an African Prince Who Was Kidnapped Into Slavery Outsmarted His Captors
The ‘Father of Modern Gynecology’ Performed Shocking Experiments on Enslaved Women
America’s Forgotten Mass Imprisonment of Women Believed to Be Sexually Immoral
Bill Clinton: First Presidential Term: 1993-1997
Clinton was inaugurated in January 1993 at age 46, making him the third-youngest president in history up to that time. During his first term, Clinton enacted a variety of pieces of domestic legislation, including the Family and Medical Leave Act and the Violence Against Women Act, along with key bills pertaining to crime and gun violence, education, the environment and welfare reform.
He put forth measures to reduce the federal budget deficit and also signed the North American Free Trade Agreement, which eliminated trade barriers between the United States, Canada and Mexico. He attempted to enact universal health insurance for all Americans, and appointed first lady Hillary Clinton to head the committee charged with creating the plan. However, the committee’s plan was opposed by conservatives and the health care industry, among others, and Congress ultimately failed to act on it.
Clinton appointed a number of women and minorities to key government posts, including Janet Reno (1938-), who became the first female U.S. attorney general in 1993, and Madeleine Albright (1937-), who was sworn in as the first female U.S. secretary of state in 1997. He appointed Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933-) to the Supreme Court in 1993. She was the second female justice in the court’s history. Clinton’s other Supreme Court nominee, Stephen Breyer (1938-), joined the court in 1994.
On the foreign policy front, the Clinton administration helped bring about the 1994 reinstatement of Haiti’s democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1953-). In 1995, the administration brokered the Dayton Accords, which ended the war in Bosnia.
Clinton ran for re-election in 1996 and defeated U.S. Senator Bob Dole (1923-) of Kansas by a margin of 379-159 electoral votes and with 49.2 percent of the popular vote to Dole’s 40.7 percent of the vote. (Third-party candidate Ross Perot garnered 8.4 percent of the popular vote.) Clinton’s victory marked the first time since Franklin Roosevelt (1882-1945) that a Democrat was elected to a second presidential term
Bill Clinton: Second Presidential Term: 1997-2001
During Clinton’s second term, the U.S. economy was healthy, unemployment was low and the nation experienced a major technology boom and the rise of the Internet. In 1998, the United States achieved its first federal budget surplus in three decades (the final two years of Clinton’s presidency also resulted in budget surpluses). In 2000, the president signed legislation establishing permanent normal trade relations with China.
Additionally, the Clinton administration helped broker a peace accord in Northern Ireland in 1998. That same year, America launched air attacks against Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs. In 1999, the United States led a NATO effort to end ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.
In the midst of these events, Clinton’s second term was marred by scandal. On December 19, 1998, the U.S. House of Representatives impeached him for perjury and obstruction of justice in connection with a sexual relationship he had with White House intern Monica Lewinsky (1973-) between late 1995 and early 1997. On February 12, 1999, the U.S. Senate acquitted the president of the charges and he remained in office. Clinton was the second American president to be impeached. The first, Andrew Johnson (1808-75), was impeached in 1868 and also later acquitted
Bill Clinton: Post-Presidency
After leaving the White House, Clinton remained active in public life, establishing the William J. Clinton Foundation to combat poverty, disease and other global issues.
The William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park in Little Rock, Arkansas, opened in 2004. That same year, Clinton released his autobiography, “My Life,” which became a best-seller. He also campaigned for his wife, who was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York in 2000. In 2008, Hillary Clinton ran for the Democratic presidential nomination but lost to Barack Obama (1961-), who named her secretary of state when he became president.
Citation Information
Article Title
Bill Clinton
AuthorHistory.com Editors
Website Name
HISTORY
URL
Access Date
January 24, 2022
Publisher
A&E Television Networks
Last Updated
January 19, 2022
Original Published Date
November 9, 2009BY HISTORY.COM EDITORS
FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn’t look right, click here to contact us!
VIDEOS
Clinton Denies Sexual Relationship
Clinton’s First Inaugural Address
Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present.SIGN UP
RELATED CONTENT
Hillary Rodham Clinton (1947-) helped define the role of the modern political spouse and was one of the most accomplished first ladies in American history. A trained lawyer, she built a thriving career in the public and private sector, which she balanced with family life …read more
After the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the Founding Fathers turned to the composition of the states’ and then the federal Constitution. Although a Bill of Rights to protect the citizens was not initially deemed important, the Constitution’s supporters realized it was …read more
Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States and the first African American president, was elected over Senator John McCain of Arizona on November 4, 2008. Obama, a former senator from Illinois whose campaign’s slogan was “Change we can believe in” and “Yes we can,” was …read more
Officially the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, the G.I. Bill was created to help veterans of World War II. It established hospitals, made low-interest mortgages available and granted stipends covering tuition and expenses for veterans attending college or trade schools. …read more
New York City real estate developer and reality TV star Donald Trump (1946- ) served as America’s 45th president from January 2017-January 2021. The billionaire businessman ran as a Republican and scored an upset victory over his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, in the 2016 …read more
Departing from the monarchical tradition of Britain, the founding fathers of the United States created a system in which the American people had the power and responsibility to select their leader. Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution establishes the Executive Branch …read more
George W. Bush (1946-), America’s 43rd president, served in office from 2001 to 2009. Before entering the White House, Bush, the oldest son of George H.W. Bush, the 41st U.S. president, was a two-term Republican governor of Texas. A graduate of Yale University and Harvard …read more
Born in poverty, Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) had become a wealthy Tennessee lawyer and rising young politician by 1812, when war broke out between the United States and Britain. His leadership in that conflict earned Jackson national fame as a military hero, and he would become …read more
Andrew Johnson (1808-1875), the 17th U.S. president, assumed office after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865). Johnson, who served from 1865 to 1869, was the first American president to be impeached. A tailor before he entered politics, Johnson grew up poor and …read moreSEE MORE
- Ad Choices
- Advertise
- Closed Captioning
- Copyright Policy
- Corporate Information
- Employment Opportunities
- FAQ/Contact Us
- Privacy Notice
- Terms of Use
- TV Parental Guidelines
- RSS Feeds
- Accessibility Support
© 2022 A&E Television Networks, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Sign up for the Inside History newsletter
Bill Clinton
- HISTORY.COM EDITORS
- UPDATED:JUN 7, 2019ORIGINAL:NOV 9, 2009
Getty Images / JOYCE NALTCHAYAN / Staff
CONTENTS
- Bill Clinton: Early Life and Education
- Bill Clinton: Family, Arkansas Political Career and First Presidential Campaign
- Bill Clinton: First Presidential Term: 1993-1997
- Bill Clinton: Second Presidential Term: 1997-2001
- Bill Clinton: Post-Presidency
Bill Clinton (1946-), the 42nd U.S. president, served in office from 1993 to 2001. Prior to that, the Arkansas native and Democrat was governor of his home state. During Clinton’s time in the White House, America enjoyed an era of peace and prosperity, marked by low unemployment, declining crime rates and a budget surplus.
Clinton appointed a number of women and minorities to top government posts, including Janet Reno, the first female U.S. attorney general, and Madeleine Albright, the first female U.S. secretary of state. In 1998, the House of Representatives impeached Clinton on charges related to a sexual relationship he had with a White House intern. He was acquitted by the Senate. Following his presidency, Clinton remained active in public life.
Bill Clinton: Early Life and Education
Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946, in Hope, Arkansas. He was the only child of Virginia Cassidy Blythe (1923-94) and traveling salesman William Jefferson Blythe Jr. (1918-46), who died in a car accident three months before his son’s birth. In 1950, Virginia Blythe married car dealer Roger Clinton Sr. (1908-67) and the family later moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas. As a teen, Bill Clinton officially adopted his stepfather’s surname. His only sibling, Roger Clinton Jr., was born in 1956.
Did you know? In 2001, Clinton became the first president to be married to a U.S. senator. Just days before he left office, first lady Hillary Clinton was sworn in as the freshman senator from New York.
In 1964, Clinton graduated from Hot Springs High School, where he was a musician and student leader. (In 1963, as part of the American Legion Boys’ Nation program, he went to Washington, D.C., and shook hands with President John Kennedy at the White House, an event he later said inspired him to pursue a career in public service.) Clinton went on to earn a degree from Georgetown University in 1968. Afterward, he attended Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship. In 1973, he received a degree from Yale Law School.
At Yale, Clinton started dating fellow law student Hillary Rodham (1947-). After graduating, the couple moved to Clinton’s home state, where he worked as a law professor at the University of Arkansas. In 1974, Clinton, a Democrat, ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives but lost to his Republican opponent.
Bill Clinton: Family, Arkansas Political Career and First Presidential Campaign
On October 11, 1975, Clinton and Rodham were married in a small ceremony at their house in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The following year, Bill Clinton was elected attorney general of Arkansas. In 1978, he was elected governor of the state. The Clintons’ only child, Chelsea, was born in February 1980. That fall, Clinton lost his bid for re-election as governor. Afterward, he joined a Little Rock law firm.
In 1982, he won the governorship again and would remain in that office through 1992. While serving as Arkansas’ first lady, Hillary Clinton also worked as an attorney.
After winning the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992, Clinton, along with vice-presidential nominee Al Gore (1948-), a U.S. senator from Tennessee, went on to defeat the incumbent, President George H.W. Bush (1924-), by a margin of 370-168 electoral votes and with 43 percent of the popular vote to Bush’s 37.5 percent of the vote. A third-party candidate, Ross Perot (1930-), captured almost 19 percent of the popular vote.
Recommended for you
How an African Prince Who Was Kidnapped Into Slavery Outsmarted His Captors
The ‘Father of Modern Gynecology’ Performed Shocking Experiments on Enslaved Women
America’s Forgotten Mass Imprisonment of Women Believed to Be Sexually Immoral
Bill Clinton: First Presidential Term: 1993-1997
Clinton was inaugurated in January 1993 at age 46, making him the third-youngest president in history up to that time. During his first term, Clinton enacted a variety of pieces of domestic legislation, including the Family and Medical Leave Act and the Violence Against Women Act, along with key bills pertaining to crime and gun violence, education, the environment and welfare reform.
He put forth measures to reduce the federal budget deficit and also signed the North American Free Trade Agreement, which eliminated trade barriers between the United States, Canada and Mexico. He attempted to enact universal health insurance for all Americans, and appointed first lady Hillary Clinton to head the committee charged with creating the plan. However, the committee’s plan was opposed by conservatives and the health care industry, among others, and Congress ultimately failed to act on it.
Clinton appointed a number of women and minorities to key government posts, including Janet Reno (1938-), who became the first female U.S. attorney general in 1993, and Madeleine Albright (1937-), who was sworn in as the first female U.S. secretary of state in 1997. He appointed Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933-) to the Supreme Court in 1993. She was the second female justice in the court’s history. Clinton’s other Supreme Court nominee, Stephen Breyer (1938-), joined the court in 1994.
On the foreign policy front, the Clinton administration helped bring about the 1994 reinstatement of Haiti’s democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1953-). In 1995, the administration brokered the Dayton Accords, which ended the war in Bosnia.
Clinton ran for re-election in 1996 and defeated U.S. Senator Bob Dole (1923-) of Kansas by a margin of 379-159 electoral votes and with 49.2 percent of the popular vote to Dole’s 40.7 percent of the vote. (Third-party candidate Ross Perot garnered 8.4 percent of the popular vote.) Clinton’s victory marked the first time since Franklin Roosevelt (1882-1945) that a Democrat was elected to a second presidential term
Bill Clinton: Second Presidential Term: 1997-2001
During Clinton’s second term, the U.S. economy was healthy, unemployment was low and the nation experienced a major technology boom and the rise of the Internet. In 1998, the United States achieved its first federal budget surplus in three decades (the final two years of Clinton’s presidency also resulted in budget surpluses). In 2000, the president signed legislation establishing permanent normal trade relations with China.
Additionally, the Clinton administration helped broker a peace accord in Northern Ireland in 1998. That same year, America launched air attacks against Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs. In 1999, the United States led a NATO effort to end ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.
In the midst of these events, Clinton’s second term was marred by scandal. On December 19, 1998, the U.S. House of Representatives impeached him for perjury and obstruction of justice in connection with a sexual relationship he had with White House intern Monica Lewinsky (1973-) between late 1995 and early 1997. On February 12, 1999, the U.S. Senate acquitted the president of the charges and he remained in office. Clinton was the second American president to be impeached. The first, Andrew Johnson (1808-75), was impeached in 1868 and also later acquitted
Bill Clinton: Post-Presidency
After leaving the White House, Clinton remained active in public life, establishing the William J. Clinton Foundation to combat poverty, disease and other global issues.
The William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park in Little Rock, Arkansas, opened in 2004. That same year, Clinton released his autobiography, “My Life,” which became a best-seller. He also campaigned for his wife, who was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York in 2000. In 2008, Hillary Clinton ran for the Democratic presidential nomination but lost to Barack Obama (1961-), who named her secretary of state when he became president.
Citation Information
Article Title
Bill Clinton
AuthorHistory.com Editors
Website Name
HISTORY
URL
Access Date
January 24, 2022
Publisher
A&E Television Networks
Last Updated
January 19, 2022
Original Published Date
November 9, 2009BY HISTORY.COM EDITORS
FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn’t look right, click here to contact us!
VIDEOS
Clinton Denies Sexual Relationship
Clinton’s First Inaugural Address
Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present.SIGN UP
RELATED CONTENT
Hillary Rodham Clinton (1947-) helped define the role of the modern political spouse and was one of the most accomplished first ladies in American history. A trained lawyer, she built a thriving career in the public and private sector, which she balanced with family life …read more
After the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the Founding Fathers turned to the composition of the states’ and then the federal Constitution. Although a Bill of Rights to protect the citizens was not initially deemed important, the Constitution’s supporters realized it was …read more
Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States and the first African American president, was elected over Senator John McCain of Arizona on November 4, 2008. Obama, a former senator from Illinois whose campaign’s slogan was “Change we can believe in” and “Yes we can,” was …read more
Officially the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, the G.I. Bill was created to help veterans of World War II. It established hospitals, made low-interest mortgages available and granted stipends covering tuition and expenses for veterans attending college or trade schools. …read more
New York City real estate developer and reality TV star Donald Trump (1946- ) served as America’s 45th president from January 2017-January 2021. The billionaire businessman ran as a Republican and scored an upset victory over his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, in the 2016 …read more
Departing from the monarchical tradition of Britain, the founding fathers of the United States created a system in which the American people had the power and responsibility to select their leader. Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution establishes the Executive Branch …read more
George W. Bush (1946-), America’s 43rd president, served in office from 2001 to 2009. Before entering the White House, Bush, the oldest son of George H.W. Bush, the 41st U.S. president, was a two-term Republican governor of Texas. A graduate of Yale University and Harvard …read more
Born in poverty, Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) had become a wealthy Tennessee lawyer and rising young politician by 1812, when war broke out between the United States and Britain. His leadership in that conflict earned Jackson national fame as a military hero, and he would become …read more
Andrew Johnson (1808-1875), the 17th U.S. president, assumed office after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865). Johnson, who served from 1865 to 1869, was the first American president to be impeached. A tailor before he entered politics, Johnson grew up poor and …read moreSEE MORE
- Ad Choices
- Advertise
- Closed Captioning
- Copyright Policy
- Corporate Information
- Employment Opportunities
- FAQ/Contact Us
- Privacy Notice
- Terms of Use
- TV Parental Guidelines
- RSS Feeds
- Accessibility Support