Portal:Chicago/Selected biography/24

Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is a former United States Secretary of State and former U.S. Senator who was the nominee of the Democratic Party for President of the United States in the 2016 election. She was the first female candidate to gain that status for a major American political party. Before being elected to the Senate, she served as First Lady of the United States during the presidency of Bill Clinton from 1993 to 2001, and First Lady of Arkansas from 1983 to 1992. A native of Illinois, Hillary Rodham attracted national attention in 1969 when she delivered an address as the first student to speak at commencement exercises for Wellesley College. She began her career as a lawyer after graduating from Yale Law School in 1973. She moved to Arkansas in 1974 and married Bill Clinton in 1975. She was later named the first female partner at Rose Law Firm. As First Lady of the United States, her major initiative, the Clinton health care plan, failed to gain approval by the U.S. Congress in 1994. She became the only First Lady to be subpoenaed, testifying before a federal grand jury as a consequence of the Whitewater controversy in 1996. She was never charged with any wrongdoing in this or several other investigations during her husband's administration. Clinton served as the junior U.S. Senator representing New York from 2001 to 2009, being elected in 2000 – the first female senator from New York and the only first lady ever to have sought elective office – and re-elected in 2006. She subsequently served as the 67th U.S. Secretary of State in the presidential administration of Barack Obama, from 2009 to 2013. Leaving office after Obama's first term, she authored her fifth book and undertook speaking engagements before announcing her second presidential run in the 2016 election.