Self

15 Things You Didn't Know About Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Hillary Clinton 2016

On Sunday, Hillary Clinton finally and officially announced that she's running for President of the United States in 2016 after previously announcing that she had an announcement. The lady sure knows how to build hype, eh?

Though Hillary has spent a good portion of her career in the shadow of husband and former President Bill Clinton, her own achievements and scandals are almost as entertaining, heartwarming and sometimes baffling as Slick Willie's. Get to know the former First Lady, the 67th Secretary of State and current 2016 presidential hopeful.

1. Hillary Rodham met Bill Clinton in the Yale Law Library. For all of his brilliance, Bill couldn't just keep his head in the books. (Later, he couldn't keep his other head in his pants.)

2. Hillary rejected Bill Clinton's proposals a few times. Bill first proposed on a trip to England, which she declined. He asked her a few more times to marry him and she rejected them all until he said he'd never ask again. But he did, in a big way: Two years later, Bill drove Hillary to a house she'd liked in Arkansas and told her he bought it and couldn't live there alone. She finally said "yes."

3. Hillary Clinton was once a Republican. In 1964, she worked on Barry Goldwater's campaign. She switched over to the Democratic Party in 1968, when she campaigned for Eugene McCarthy. They both lost.

4. Hillary Clinton was almost involved in another impeachment. She was on the presidential impeachment inquiry staff during the Nixon administration in 1974, but ole' Dick resigned before he could actually get officially impeached.

5. First Lady isn't her only "first." Clinton is the first First Lady to be elected to national office as well as the first First Lady to have a post-graduate degree ... and the first First Lady to be subpoeaned and fingerprinted by the FBI.

6. Politics wasn't her initial calling. Hillary Clinton's career aspirations were a bunch of boys' clubs: She wanted to be a baseball player or an astronaut, even writing to NASA about her dream. NASA wrote back that they didn't accept women, and now they may ultimately have to report to one someday.

7. She had a stellar law career. In 1988 and 1991, Clinton was named one of the 100 Most Influential U.S. Lawyers by the National Law Journal.

8. "Obamacare" was almost "Clintoncare." Hillary championed for healthcare reform nearly 20 years before the Affordable Care Act existed, but in 1993 Congress struck down Bill's health care package.

9. Hillary Clinton failed a bar exam. She nailed the Arkansas bar exam, but wasn't up to snuff the first time she took the Washington, D.C. bar exam, which had recently changed from focusing on local law to multi-state law.

10. Clinton worked in the seafood industry before getting into law. In 1969, Hillary Clinton gutted salmon for a cannery in Valdez, Alaska.

11. She might be related to a captain of the U.S.S. EnterpriseWhile researching her family tree, Hillary Clinton found that her French Canadian ancestry included a "Picard" family.

12. Hillary Clinton is a Grammy winner. In 1997 she took home the trophy for Best Spoken Word Album for her audio recording of her book It Takes A Village. She later laughed, "This is my first ever Grammys, and as I said when I thanked everybody, I didn't even know that people who couldn't sing a note and were tone-deaf were eligible for any Grammys!"

13. Hillary Clinton is the most traveled Secretary of State. She visited 112 countries during her four-year tenure, topping Madeleine Albright's record and spending roughly a quarter of her term in the air.

14. She's a Cubs fan. Though she also supports the New York Yankees, Hillary Clinton explains, "Being a Cubs fan prepares you for life, and for Washington." Perhaps in the way that being a Jets fan prepares you for a lifetime of disappointment and broken dreams.

15. Hillary Clinton has Life experience. She was featured in Life magazine after killing it with her college commencement address when she was 21.