Joe Biden

American politician who served as the 47th vice president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented Delaware in the U.S. Senate from 1973 to 2009. He gained a reputation as a young man on the move when he unseated incumbent Republican Senator Boggs in 1972. Election day was just weeks before he turned 30, the required minimum age. Two weeks before Biden took office, his wife and daughter were killed and his two sons injured in an auto accident in November 1972 as they were driving home after buying a Christmas tree. Since then, in 1977 he was remarried, to schoolteacher Jill Jacobs who, four years later, gave birth to a daughter on 8 June 1980. Applauded as a smooth and polished orator, he declared his presidential candidacy on 9 June 1987, but bowed out of the race on 23 September 1987 after weeks of attacks by the press, accusations of plagiarism of segments of his speeches and falsehoods about his school record. Instead of a full academic scholarship, he had actually gone to school on a half scholarship based on financial need. He did not finish in the "top half" but was No..76 in a class of 85, and he did not graduate from Delaware with three degrees but with a single B.A. in poli-sci and history. Not the first man to pad his resume, he had not taken into account the level of visibility of a public servant. He had an brain aneurysm at the age of 45 that required two operations to correct. In the spring of 1987, with the stress and pressure of 18-hour campaign days, he began getting frequent and severe headaches. In late January 1988, he was stricken with a pain from his neck and head that began to spread down his back and legs, diagnosed by an orthopedist as a degenerative neck disk. A month later, the pain returned like a flashing bolt in the top of his head, knocking him out with its severity. He was given about a 60% chance of survival when he went into Walter Reed hospital for neurosurgery. The surgery for the second aneurysm was on 2 May 1988. Biden wrote that August 1988 was one of the happiest months of his life, "with no worry, just euphoria that God was so good to me." His family surrounded him with care and security and he was immensely proud of Jill for taking charge. On 26 December 2006, Senator Biden threw his hat in the ring hoping to win the Democratic nomination in the 2008 race for President. Senator Biden dropped his bid for the White House after a poor showing in the Iowa caucus on 3 January 2008. But in late August 2008 he was selected to be Vice President in the Democratic Party's race for the White House with the Presidential nominee Barack Obama. He was officially nominated by acclamation at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado on 27 August 2008 at 8:19 PM MDT (time from observation). He and Barack Obama won the election on 4 November 2008. He took his oath of office in Washington DC on 20 January 2009 at 11:57 AM EST (time from observation). Biden's beloved nonagenarian mother was often seen with Biden at key moments during the campaign. She died on 8 January 2010 after a brief illness. Biden was struck by a second family tragedy on 30 May 2015, when his son Beau died of brain cancer at age 46 after battling it for several years. Link to Wikipedia biography