by Yoon Joung Lee The 67th United States Secretary of State, Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton was born in 1947 in Chicago, Illinois to her father, Hugh Ellsworth Rodham and her mother, Dorothy Emma Howell. She was the eldest daughter and grew up with two younger brothers, Hugh and Tony in suburban Park Ridge, Illinois As a young student, Hillary was a teacher’s favorite because she not only studied hard but also earned numerous awards as a Brownie and Girl Scout. She was very athletic; participated in swimming, baseball, and other sports. She organized food drives to serve student government. She was active in young republican groups and campaigned for Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater in 1964. In 1968 after she heard the speech of Reverend Martin Luther King, she became a Democrat and started to work in some form of public service. In 1969 Hillary graduated from Wellesley College and enrolled in Yale Law School where she met Bill Clinton who was a fellow law student. During her summers as a college student, she came to Washington, D.C. to work for U.S. Senator Walter Mondale’s subcommittee on migrant workers. In 1972, she moved to the western states to work on campaign of Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern. In 1974, Hillary graduated from Yale Law School with honors and became a member of the presidential impeachment inquiry staff to advise the Judiciary committee of the House of Representatives during the Watergate Scandal. After the president resigned, she worked for the University of Arkansas Law School as a faculty member. Her law school fellow and boyfriend, Bill Clinton was teaching there at that time. In 1975, they married and their daughter, Chelsea, was born in 1980. In 1976, she worked for Jimmy Carter’s successful campaign for president. Meanwhile, her husband Bill was elected Attorney General. In 1978, Bill was elected governor. Although he lost re-election in 1980, he came back to win in 1982, 1094, 1986 and 1990. As First Lady of Arkansas for over 10 years, she co-founded the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families and worked as a chair for the Arkansas Educational Standards Committee. In 1988 and 1991, she was selected as one of the 100 most powerful lawyers in America by The National Law Journal. During the 1992 presidential campaign, she stood next by Bill Clinton as dynamic and valued partner. When he took office in 1993, he asked Hillary to serve as a chair for the Task Force on National Health Care Reform. She advocated to improve health care quality and to provide health insurance for the uninsured and the underinsured. She was also ambitious about increasing immunizations for preschool-age children, pushing for an expansion of children’s health insurance coverage, advocating for innovative prenatal care and raising awareness of the impact of tobacco on children. In 1998, the White House was engulfed by the President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky sex scandal. The president was impeached, but the U.S. Senate failed to convict and the president remained in office. While Bill Clinton limited to two terms left in the White House, Hillary sought the U.S. Senate seat from New York. As she beat popular Republican Rick Lazio by wide margin: 55 to 43 percent, she became the first woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate from New York. In 2006, she was again re-elected. In 2007, Hillary Clinton announced her plan to run for the U.S. president - to be the first female president. In 2008, she failed to win the nomination as Barack Obama held a majority of the delegate vote. President Obama nominated Hillary Clinton to become Secretary of State in his 2009 cabinet and she accepted the nomination. With her own special talents, experience and interest, many people believe that Hillary Rodham Clinton is one of the powerful and influential women in American history. by Yoon Joung Lee The wife of the 35th President of the United States, Jacqueline Lee Bouvier, was born in Southampton, New York in 1929 to an affluent family as the elder of two daughters. Her father, John Vernou Bouvier lll was a successful Wall Street stockbroker and her mother, Janet Norton Lee, was an American socialite. She spent most of her childhood in New York City and East Hampton, New York. Her mother was an accomplished rider and she put her little girl Jackie on a horse when she was a year old. Since that time, Jackie showed outstanding talent on horse riding and she won several national championships by age 11. Other than horse riding, she also enjoyed reading and she was able to read all the childrens’ books by herself even before she started school. Her family believed that Jackie might one day be a writer. When Jackie was ten years old in 1942, her parents divorced and her mother married Hugh D. Auchincloss, Jr., who was a wealthy lawyer. Due to her parent’s divorce, her sisters had to spend their time evenly in their mother’s homes in McLean, Virginia and their father’s homes in New York City and Long island. In 1947, she graduated from Miss Porter’s School, a boarding school for girls in Connecticut and continue to study at Vassar College in New York majoring in history, literature, art and French. In 1951, she graduated from George Washington University and took a job at the Washington Times-Herald as a reporter-photographer. Soon after she got a job, she met John F. Kennedy who was a popular congressman. In 1953, they married at St. Mary’s Church in Newport, Rhode Island. The early years of their marriage was filled with considerable disappointment and sadness. John underwent two operations from his spinal problems and wartime injuries and Jackie experienced miscarriage and delivered a stillborn daughter. While John was recovering from surgery, Jackie encouraged him to write about several U.S. senators fighting for the things they believed in. The book, Profiles in Courage, won the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 1957. That same year, the Kennedys’ first child, Caroline Bouvier Kennedy, was born. 3 years later in 1960, John Kennedy was elected the nation’s 35th president and it was just weeks before Jackie gave birth to their son, John F. Kennedy, Jr. Jackie was 31 years old. Jackie became the youngest first lady in nearly 80 years. She started travelling all over the world accompanying her husband and cameras caught her gracious personal style as well as her fashion sense, beauty, and facility with languages. She soon made the White House into a real home for her family. She made a kindergarten school for John and Caroline and 12 other children. She also established a White House Fine Arts Committee and gathered outstanding American arts and furnitures around the United States to restore all the public rooms in the White House. She wanted people to have a greater appreciation of the history of America’s most famous residence. Her work was aired on CBS Television and 80 millions American watched the broadcast. She won an honorary Emmy Award. In 1963, Jackie accompanied her husband to Texas to make one of her infrequent political appearances. As the president’s motorcade passed Dallas, she heard several gunshots and the last one passed John’s head. She returned to the capital as a widowed first lady. During John’s funeral, she received an outpouring of admiration from Americans and from all over the world. After her husband’s death, she moved to New York City. In 1968, she married the Greek shipping magnate, Aristotle Onassis, but after 7 years, she again lost her husband, inheriting a sum variously estimated at $20 million to $26 million. After losing her second husband, she spent her time in an apartment in New York City and maintained her interest in the arts and in landmark preservation. In 1994, she died in her new York City apartment after she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Her funeral was held at St. Ignatius Roman Catholic Church and she was buried in Arlington National Cemetery next to John F. Kennedy. |
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