Bill Clinton Biography Summary

Bill Clinton was born on August 19, 1946, in Hope, Arkansas, the son of William Blythe and Virginia Blythe. After his father's death, he took the surname of his stepfather, Roger Clinton.

He earned a B.S. from Georgetown University in 1968, studied as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford (1968‑1970), and received a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1973. Clinton married Hillary Rodham in 1975; their daughter Chelsea was born in 1980.

Clinton entered politics as Arkansas attorney general in 1976, became governor in 1978, and served until 1992. He was elected the 42nd President of the United States in 1992 and re‑elected in 1996, the first Democrat since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win a second term. As president he signed the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (1993) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (1993), and later the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (1994). He was impeached by the House in 1998, becoming the second U.S. president to be impeached.