Bill Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III in the Julia Chester Hospital on August 19th 1946, Hope, Arkansas. He was named after his father, William Jefferson Blythe II, who was killed in an automobile accident three month's before Bill was born. When he was 2 years old, he was sent to live with his grandparents, who also lived in Hope, while his mother, Virginia Blythe, studied nursing in New Orleans. When he was 4, his mother married Roger Clinton, a car salesman. Virginia had a child to Roger and named him after his father. Roger Clinton then moved his family to Hot Springs, Arkansas. Young Bill later took his stepfather's last name.

Bill Clinton attended school on Little Rock. He was an honours student, played the saxophone, and was popular with his classmates. Unfotunatly, life at home was not always pleasant. The elder Clinton was an lcoholic, and when he had too much to drink he would be abusive to both Bill and his mother. One day, when Bill was about 14, he stood up to his stepfather. Although his stepfather kept drinking, the abuse stopped. As Bill grew older, he came to understand his stepfather's problem and so was able to forgive him before he died.

Clinton once thought of becoming a doctor or a reporter and even a musician. However, after a fateful meeting with President John F. Kennedy, while still in high school, hemade up his mind to enter politics. The meeting came about in 1963, whe he was a delegate to the American Legion Boy's Nation, a youth program in which students learn about the government. Clinton was part of the group that was invited to the White House to meet President Kennedy, who only two months later was to be assasinated, shook hands with the young Clinto and made a lasting impression upon him.

After graduating from Hot Springs High School in 1964, Clinton enrolled at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. In his spare time he worked in the office of Seator J. William Fulright of Arkansas. Upon his graduation from Georgetown with a degree in International Affairs in 1968, he won a two year Rhodes Scholorship at Oxford University in England. He returned to the US in 1970 to study law at Yale University. In 1972 he took time off to work for the Presidential campaign of Democratic Senator George McGovern of South Dakota, who was defeated by Richard M. Nixon. The following year Clinton recieved his law degree.