AUGUST 19 – 1946 Happy Birthday Bill Clinton; 1944 Happy Birthday Jack Canfield (Chicken Soup for the Soul); 1906 Filo Farnsworth
AUGUST 19 – Happy birthday #42 Bill Clinton.
…William Jefferson Blythe was born August 19 1946 in Hope Arkansas to William Jefferson and Virginia Blythe. Just before Bill Clinton was born, his father died in an auto accident, so Virginia moved to New Orleans where Bill would stay with his strict grandparents. When Bill was four years old, Virginia met and married Roger Clinton, a car salesman, and the family moved to Hot Springs AK. When he was a teen, Bill assumed the family name, and though he wasn’t brought up in a religious family, he became a devoted Baptist. After high school, Bill attended Georgetown University, then attended Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship before moving onto Yale Law school where he earned a degree, and thus began his political career.
At Yale, he met and began dating Hillary Rodham. He was defeated in his campaign for Congress in the Third District of AK in 1974. On October 11 1975, Bill and Hillary got married, and in 1980 daughter and only child Chelsea was born. After serving as attorney general, Bill ran and was elected governor of AK, becoming one of the youngest governors in American history.
He lost the bid for a second term, but was reelected governor in 1982, and served in that office until 1992. That’s when he ran for President with Al Gore on his ticket and defeated current president George HW Bush and 3rd party candidate Ross Perot in the election. During his first term, Bill was successful in enacting the Family and Medical Leave Act, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and the ratification of NAFTA. However, his attempt to pass a major universal health care system, spearheaded by Hillary, was defeated in Congress.
During the mid-term elections in 1994, the Republicans captured both houses. Despite his unpopularity, the Clinton Comeback came in the election of 1996 where he easily defeated Republican Bob Dole, thus making Bill the first Democratic president since FDR to serve two terms. He began his second term by passing the Welfare Reform and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program which provided health coverage for children.
In 1998, his legacy was clouded by Monica Lewinsky. White House intern. He famously committed perjury by saying he did not have sexual relations with Monica, and was impeached. He was tried by the Senate and found not guilty.
Bill set the record straight to the American people by admitting he lied about his infidelities. Overall, under Clinton’s administration, the U.S. enjoyed the most economic well being than ever in American history. Not only that, but VP Al Gore invented the Internet as he famously once claimed. Good stuff. In foreign policy, he launched attacks against Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons program under Saddam Hussein, then in 1999 led a NATO effort to end ethnic cleansing of Albanians in Kosovo. However, he was unable to stop genocide in Rwanda.
After his presidency, Bill assembled the William J. Clinton Foundation, the Clinton Global Initiative, and the Clinton Haiti Foundation fund to assist rebuilding of Haiti after a devastating earthquake in 2010.
After Hillary was defeated by Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic National Convention, Bill wrote his autobiography My Life, which was about, well, his life. Regarding his legacy as president, Bill Clinton stated: “I judge my presidency primarily in terms of its impact on people’s lives. That is how I kept score: all the millions of people with new jobs, new homes and college aid; the people who left welfare for work; the families helped by the family leave law; the people living in safer neighborhoods—all those people have stories, and they’re better ones now”
Happy birthday Slick Willie!
1944 – happy birthday Jack Canfield, motivational speaker, co-author of Chicken Soup for the Soul.
Originally from Fort Worth TX, he studied, among other things, Chinese History when he went to Harvard. That might be why he’s so darn smart. In 1993 he teamed up with Victor Hansen to write Chicken Soup, which became the third biggest selling series of the 1990s, according to USA Today. He also famously expressed the art of goal setting and achieving in the book The Success Principles, how to get From Where you are to where you Want To Be, which he co-wrote with Janet Switzer. These days, there’s literally hundreds of Chicken Soups, one just for just about everybody, from grandparents, to single ladies, and everyone in between.
Happy birthday Jack!
1906 – Happy birthday Philo Farnsworth.
…He made a lot of contributions to the early television set, including the all-electronic image pickup device. Whatever the hell that is.
1953 –CIA assis a coup d’etat in Iran.
…Premier Mohammad Mosaddeq, a fierce nationalist was toppled and replaced b y the Shah of Iran. The United States persuaded, threatened and bribed the Iranian military to support the shah. Definitely not in the interests of the Iranian people. Protests were taken to the streets, but the Shah remained as the US provided economic and military aid for the next thirty years. In 1979, the Shah was forcefully removed from power, anti-American protestors seized the US embassy and took Americans hostage until January 1981.