Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He was born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946, in Hope, Arkansas, three months after his biological father died in a car accident. He took the surname Clinton from his stepfather, Roger Clinton Sr. He attended Georgetown University, was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and earned a law degree from Yale, where he met Hillary Rodham, whom he married in 1975.

He was elected attorney general of Arkansas in 1976 and governor of Arkansas in 1978 at age 32, then again from 1983 through 1992. He won the presidency in 1992, defeating incumbent George H. W. Bush and independent Ross Perot, and was re-elected in 1996 over Bob Dole.

His administration oversaw passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, and welfare reform under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996. He presided over a long economic expansion and balanced federal budgets in his second term. He was impeached by the House of Representatives in December 1998 on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice arising from his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, and he was acquitted by the Senate in February 1999.

After leaving office he founded the Clinton Foundation and was active in disaster-relief work. His wife later served as US Senator from New York and Secretary of State, and ran for president in 2008 and 2016.

Their name Bill derives from the Germanic elements wil meaning will or desire and helm meaning helmet, by way of the longer name William. Bill served as one of the dominant short forms of William in twentieth-century America.