10 Things You Didn't Know about Hillary Clinton
1. Born Hillary Diane Rodham on Oct. 26, 1947, in Chicago
to Hugh E. Rodham, who owned a drapery making business, and Dorothy
Howell Rodham, a full-time homemaker. Her parents were Republicans.
2. When she was 12 years old, she wrote to the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration, asking how she could become an
astronaut. She received a reply saying that NASA didn't accept women in
the astronaut program. Her mother comforted her by saying that her
eyesight was much too bad anyway.
3. While at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, she
became head of the local chapter of the Young Republicans. While there
she slowly turned leftward in her politics, campaigning for Eugene
McCarthy for president, organizing the school's first teach-ins on the
Vietnam War. She wrote her senior thesis on poverty and community
development. She graduated in 1969 with a degree in political science.
4. She appeared as a contestant on the television quiz show College Bowl.
5. In 1969, she appeared in Life magazine after
giving the first commencement speech by a student at Wellesley. She
received a standing ovation after shocking the audience by criticizing
the first speaker, Sen. Edward W. Brooke.
6. In the summer of 1970, she heard Marian Wright Edelman
speak, inspiring her to volunteer to work for Edelman's Washington
Research Project, which later became the Children's Defense Fund. While
there, she interviewed the families of migrant laborers and reported her
findings to Walter Mondale's Senate subcommittee. This began a lifelong
friendship and commitment to children's issues.
7. While at Yale in Connecticut, she first noticed Bill Clinton
while he was trying to convince a group of classmates that they didn't
need shots to visit Arkansas. He boasted that Arkansas "has the biggest
watermelons in the world." They first met in the law library after
Hillary approached Bill and said, "Look, if you're going to keep staring
at me, and I'm going to keep staring back, I think we should at least
know each other. I'm Hillary Rodham. What's your name?"
8. In 1974, she went to Washington, D.C., as one of only
three women out of 43 lawyers to work on the inquiry into the possible
impeachment of President Richard Nixon.
9. When Hillary Rodham and Bill Clinton were wed on Oct.
11, 1975, she kept her maiden name, not realizing it would become a
controversial decision. After her husband's defeat for re-election in
the 1980 Arkansas gubernatorial election, she changed her surname to
Clinton. Voters had questioned their marriage's stability.
10. In 1977, she joined the Rose Law Firm in Little
Rock. After her husband's successful gubernatorial bid in 1978, she
continued working at the firm, becoming Arkansas's first professional
first lady. In 1980, she became the firm's first female partner. In
addition, she gave birth to their daughter, Chelsea Victoria Clinton,
who was named for Joni Mitchell's song "Chelsea Morning."
Sources:
- 2002 Current Biography Yearbook
- Newsmakers, 1993
- Time
- People
- http://clinton.senate.gov/
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