Former President Bill Clinton turns 70 today. He served from 1993 to 2001 as the 42nd president of the United States. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president — and the first baby boomer to get the keys to the White House. He oversaw the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in U.S. history, but was also only the second U.S. president to be impeached.
Before becoming president, Clinton served as governor of Arkansas for five two-year terms, from 1979 to 1981 and 1983 to 1992. He was also the state's attorney general from 1977 to 1979.
In 1992, Clinton became the first Democrat to win the presidency since Jimmy Carter in 1976, defeating incumbent George H.W. Bush in a rare three-way battle that also included billionaire H. Ross Perot.
Despite being seen as the most gifted politician of his generation, Clinton suffered repeated setbacks as president, notably the 1994 “Republican Revolution” that saw the GOP recapture the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years.
After decisively winning re-election over Republican Sen. Bob Dole in 1996, Clinton in 1998 became the second president in U.S. history to be impeached. The Repulblican-held House of Representatives formally accused him of perjury to a grand jury and obstruction of justice in connection to a sex-and-lies scandal featuring a former White House intern. The Democratic-led Senate acquitted him, and Clinton served out his term.
Clinton left office with the highest end-of-office approval rating of any U.S. president since World War II. Since then, he has been involved in public speaking and humanitarian work. Clinton created the William J. Clinton Foundation to address international causes such as the prevention of AIDS and global warming. (Olivier Knox/Yahoo News)
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