Joe Biden Biography
Joe Biden is an American politician who served as the 47th vice president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. Biden is a member of the Democratic Party. He represented Delaware in the U.S. Senate from 1973 to 2009. Biden is the Democratic presidential nominee for the 2020 election, running against the incumbent, Donald Trump.
Joe became an attorney in 1969 and was elected to the New Castle County Council in 1970. Biden was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972 when he became the sixth-youngest senator in American history. He was re-elected to the upper house of Congress six times and was the fourth most senior senator when he resigned to assume the vice presidency in 2009.
He was a long-time member and former chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. In 1991, Joe opposed the Gulf War but advocated U.S. and NATO intervention in the Bosnian War in 1994 and 1995. Biden voted in favor of the resolution authorizing the Iraq War in 2002 but opposed the surge of U.S. troops in 2007.
Joe Biden Education
Joe studied at the Archmere Academy in Claymont where he was a standout halfback/wide receiver on the high school football team; he helped lead a perennially losing team to an undefeated season in his senior year. He also played on the baseball team. During these years, Joe participated in an anti-segregation sit-in at a Wilmington theatre.
Academically, Biden was an above-average student, was considered a natural leader among the students, and was elected class president during his junior and senior years. He graduated in 1961. In 1965, he earned his bachelor’s from the University of Delaware, with a double major in history and political science, graduating with a class rank of 506 out of 688.
His classmates were impressed by his cramming abilities, and he played halfback with the Blue Hens freshman football team. Biden then entered Syracuse University College of Law, receiving a half scholarship based on financial need with some additional assistance based on academics. By his own description, Biden found law school to be “the biggest bore in the world” and pulled many all-nighters to get by.
During his first year at Syracuse University College of Law, Joe Biden was accused of having plagiarized five of 15 pages of a law review article. He said it was inadvertent due to his not knowing the proper rules of citation, and he was permitted to retake the course after receiving an “F” grade, which was subsequently dropped from his record (this incident would later attract attention when further plagiarism accusations emerged in 1987). Joe received his Juris Doctor in 1968, graduating 76th of 85 in his class. He was admitted to the Delaware Bar in 1969.
Joe Biden Full Name
Biden’s full name is Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.
Joe Biden Age | How Old Is Joe Biden?
Biden is 81 years old. He was born Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. on November 20, 1942, in Scranton, Pennsylvania, United States. He celebrates his birthday on the 20th of November every year.
Joe Biden Height
Biden stands at a height of 6 feet tall.
Joe Biden Family
Joe Biden was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he lived for ten years before moving with his family to Delaware. He is the son of Catherine Eugenia Biden (née Finnegan) and Joseph Robinette Biden Sr. He is the first of four siblings in a Catholic family, with a sister and two brothers.
His mother was of Irish descent, with roots variously attributed to County Louth or County Londonderry. His father had been prosperous earlier in his life but suffered several business reversals by the time Biden was born. For several years the family had to live with Biden’s maternal grandparents, the Finnegans.
In 1953, the family moved to an apartment in Claymont, Delaware, where they lived for a few years before moving to a house in Wilmington, Delaware. Biden’s father was then more successful as a used car salesman, and the family’s circumstances were middle class.
Biden’s paternal grandparents, Mary Elizabeth (Robinette) and Joseph Harry Biden, an oil businessman from Baltimore, Maryland, were of English, French, and Irish ancestry. His maternal great-grandfather, Edward Francis Blewitt, was a member of the Pennsylvania State Senate. Biden’s paternal great-great-great-grandfather, William Biden, was born in Sussex, England, and immigrated to the United States.
Joe Biden First Wife
Joe’s first wife was Neilla Hunter, whom he was married to from 1966 till her death in 1972. The two met and began dating in 1964, while Biden was on spring break in the Bahamas.
The couple got married on August 27, 1966, while Biden was still a law student. They overcame her parents’ initial reluctance for her to wed a Roman Catholic, and the ceremony was held in a Catholic church in Skaneateles.
Joe Biden Wife Death | Joe Biden Wife And Daughter
On December 18, 1972, a few weeks after the election, his wife and one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in an automobile accident while Christmas shopping in Hockessin, Delaware.
Neilla Hunter’s station wagon was hit by a tractor-trailer as she pulled out from an intersection; the truck driver was cleared of any wrongdoing. His sons Beau and Hunter survived the accident and were taken to the hospital in fair condition, Beau with a broken leg and other wounds, and Hunter with a minor skull fracture and other head injuries. The doctors soon said both would make full recoveries.
Biden considered resigning to care for them but was persuaded not to by Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield. Subsequent to the accident, he commented that the truck driver had been drinking alcohol before the collision, but these allegations were denied by the driver’s family and were never substantiated by the police.
Joe Biden Wife
Joe Biden is married to Jill Biden. The two met in March 1975 on a blind date arranged by Biden’s brother, although it turned out that Biden had already noticed a photograph of her in an advertisement for a local park in Wilmington, Delaware. Biden would credit her with renewing his interest in both politics and life.
The couple married on June 17, 1977, by a Catholic priest at the Chapel at the United Nations in New York. They are both Roman Catholics and regularly attend Mass at St. Joseph’s on the Brandywine in Greenville, Delaware.
Joe Biden Children / Joe Biden Kids
Biden is a father of four children. He had three children with his first wife Neilla, Joseph R. “Beau” Biden III born in 1969, Robert Hunter born in 1970, and Naomi Christina born in 1971. He has one child with his wife Jill, a daughter, Ashley Blazer born in 1981.
Joe Biden Son
Joe Biden’s eldest son, Beau Biden, was Delaware Attorney General and an Army Judge Advocate who served in Iraq. He died on May 30, 2015, at the age of 46 after a two-year battle with brain cancer.
In a statement, the Vice President’s office said, “The entire Biden family is saddened beyond words.” The nature and seriousness of Beau’s illness had not been previously disclosed to the public, and Biden had quietly reduced his public schedule in order to spend more time with his son.
At the time of his death, Beau had been widely seen as the frontrunner to be the Democratic nominee for Governor of Delaware in 2016. His younger son, Hunter, became a Washington attorney and lobbyist.
Joe Biden Daughter
Biden’s daughter, Ashley Blazer, is a social worker and staffer at the Delaware Department of Services for Children, Youth, and Their Families.
Joe Biden Net Worth
He has an estimated net worth of $900,000, which he has earned from his political career, most of it being from his eight years as vice president, during which he received an annual salary of at least $230,700. However, his pension might total more than $248,000 per year.