Hillary Rodham Clinton

Name at birth: Hillary Diane Rodham

New York senator Hillary Rodham Clinton will become secretary of state in January of 2009 if confirmed by the U.S. Senate. She is the wife of former President Bill Clinton, making her the first American First Lady ever elected to national office. After graduating from Wellesley College in 1969, Hillary Rodham went to Yale Law School, where she met Clinton, a fellow student. She served as a staff attorney for the Children's Defense Fund and was also on the congressional Impeachment Inquiry staff in 1974, at the tail end of Richard Nixon's Watergate scandal. Hillary married Bill Clinton and left Washington for Arkansas in 1975. She raised their daughter Chelsea and practiced law during Clinton's 12 years as the state's governor. Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992 and Hillary became a somewhat controversial First Lady, weathering criticism about everything from her hairstyles to her involvement in public policy to her role in a questionable Arkansas land deal (the so-called Whitewater affair). She also endured her husband's much-publicized affair with intern Monica Lewinsky and supported him during the subsequent impeachment hearings. In 2000 the Clintons took residency in New York and Hillary was elected to the U.S. Senate, in the same year that George W. Bush was elected to succeed her husband. She was re-elected to a second term in 2006. She ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 2008, finally conceding to fellow senator Barack Obama after a lengthy campaign. After winning the general election that November, Obama nominated her to the post of secretary of state. If confirmed by the Senate, she'll take office on 20 January 2009.