Clinton, Bill

(born Aug. 19, 1946, Hope, Ark., U.S.) 42nd president of the U.S. (1993–2001). Born shortly after his father's death in a car crash, he later took the last name of his mother's second husband, Roger Clinton. He attended Georgetown University, the University of Oxford (as a Rhodes Scholar), and Yale Law School, then taught law at the University of Arkansas. He served as state attorney general (1977–79) and served several terms as governor (1979–81, 1983–92), during which he reformed Arkansas's educational system and encouraged the growth of industry through favourable tax policies. In 1992 he won the Democratic Party's presidential nomination despite charges of personal impropriety; in the subsequent election he defeated the incumbent, Republican George Bush, and independent candidate H. Ross Perot. As president, Clinton obtained Senate ratification of the NAFTA accord in 1993. Along with his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, he devised a plan to overhaul the U.S. health care system, but it was rejected by Congress. He committed U.S. forces to a peacekeeping initiative in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1994 the Democrats lost control of Congress for the first time since 1954. Clinton responded by offering a deficit-reduction plan while opposing efforts to slow government spending on social programs. He defeated Robert Dole to win reelection in 1996. In 1997 he helped broker a peace agreement in Northern Ireland. He faced renewed charges of personal impropriety, this time involving his relationship with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky; he denied the charges before a grand jury but ultimately acknowledged “improper relations” in a televised address. In 1998 Clinton became only the second president in history to be impeached. Charged with perjury and obstruction of justice, he was acquitted by the Senate in 1999. His two terms saw sustained economic growth and successive budget surpluses, the first in three decades.