Arithmetic tables for children, Lausanne, 1835

Arithmetic or arithmetics (from the Greek word ἀριθμός, arithmos “number”) is the oldest and most elementary branch of mathematics, used by almost everyone, for tasks ranging from simple day-to-day counting to advanced science and business calculations. It involves the study of quantity, especially as the result of operations that combine numbers. In common usage, it refers to the simpler properties when using the traditional operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division with smaller values of numbers. Professional mathematicians sometimes use the term (higher) arithmetic^[1] when referring to more advanced results related to number theory, but this should not be confused with elementary arithmetic.

History[link]

The prehistory of arithmetic is limited to a small number of artifacts which may indicate conception of addition and subtraction, the best-known being the Ishango bone from central Africa, dating from somewhere between 20,000 and 18,000 BC although its interpretation is disputed.^[2]

The earliest written records indicate the Egyptians and Babylonians used all the elementary arithmetic operations as early as 2000 BC. These artifacts do not always reveal the specific process used for solving problems, but the characteristics of the particular numeral system strongly influence the complexity of the methods. The hieroglyphic system for Egyptian numerals, like the later Roman numerals, descended from tally marks used for counting. In both cases, this origin resulted in values that used a decimal base but did not include positional notation. Complex calculations with Roman numerals required the assistance of a counting board or the Roman abacus to obtain the results.

Early number systems that included positional notation were not decimal, including the sexagesimal (base 60) system for Babylonian numerals and the vigesimal(base 20) system that defined Maya numerals. Because of this place-value concept, the ability to reuse the same digits for different values contributed to simpler and more efficient methods of calculation.

The continuous historical development of modern arithmetic starts with the Hellenistic civilization of ancient Greece, although it originated much later than the Babylonian and Egyptian examples. Prior to the works of Euclid around 300 BC, Greek studies in mathematics overlapped with philosophical and mystical beliefs. For example, Nicomachus summarized the viewpoint of the earlier Pythagorean approach to numbers, and their relationships to each other, in his Introduction to Arithmetic.

Greek numerals, derived from the hieratic Egyptian system, also lacked positional notation, and therefore imposed the same complexity on the basic operations of arithmetic. For example, the ancient mathematician Archimedes devoted his entire work The Sand Reckoner merely to devising a notation for a certain large integer.

The gradual development of Hindu-Arabic numerals independently devised the place-value concept and positional notation, which combined the simpler methods for computations with a decimal base and the use of a digit representing zero. This allowed the system to consistently represent both large and small integers. This approach eventually replaced all other systems. In the early 6th century AD, the Indian mathematician Aryabhata incorporated an existing version of this system in his work, and experimented with different notations. In the 7th century, Brahmagupta established the use of zero as a separate number and determined the results for multiplication, division, addition and subtraction of zero and all other numbers, except for the result of division by zero. His contemporary, the Syriac bishop Severus Sebokht described the excellence of this system as "...valuable methods of calculation which surpass description". The Arabs also learned this new method and called it hesab.

Leibniz's Stepped Reckoner was the first calculator that could perform all four arithmetic operations.

Although the Codex Vigilanus described an early form of Arabic numerals (omitting zero) by 976 AD, Fibonacci was primarily responsible for spreading their use throughout Europe after the publication of his book Liber Abaci in 1202. He considered the significance of this "new" representation of numbers, which he styled the "Method of the Indians" (Latin Modus Indorum), so fundamental that all related mathematical foundations, including the results of Pythagoras and the algorism describing the methods for performing actual calculations, were "almost a mistake" in comparison.

In the Middle Ages, arithmetic was one of the seven liberal arts taught in universities.

The flourishing of algebra in the medieval Islamic world and in Renaissance Europe was an outgrowth of the enormous simplification of computation through decimal notation.

Various types of tools exist to assist in numeric calculations. Examples include slide rules (for multiplication, division, and trigonometry) and nomographs in addition to the electrical calculator.

Arithmetic operations[link]

The basic arithmetic operations are addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, although this subject also includes more advanced operations, such as manipulations of percentages, square roots, exponentiation, and logarithmic functions. Arithmetic is performed according to an order of operations. Any set of objects upon which all four arithmetic operations (except division by zero) can be performed, and where these four operations obey the usual laws, is called a field.

Addition (+)[link]

Addition is the basic operation of arithmetic. In its simplest form, addition combines two numbers, the addends or terms, into a single number, the sum of the numbers.

Adding more than two numbers can be viewed as repeated addition; this procedure is known as summation and includes ways to add infinitely many numbers in an infinite series; repeated addition of the number one is the most basic form of counting.

Addition is commutative and associative so the order the terms are added in does not matter. The identity element of addition (the additive identity) is 0, that is, adding zero to any number yields that same number. Also, the inverse element of addition (the additive inverse) is the opposite of any number, that is, adding the opposite of any number to the number itself yields the additive identity, 0. For example, the opposite of 7 is −7, so 7 + (−7) = 0.

Addition can be given geometrically as in the following example:

If we have two sticks of lengths 2 and 5, then if we place the sticks one after the other, the length of the stick thus formed is 2 + 5 = 7.

Subtraction (−)[link]

Subtraction is the opposite of addition. Subtraction finds the difference between two numbers, the minuend minus the subtrahend. If the minuend is larger than the subtrahend, the difference is positive; if the minuend is smaller than the subtrahend, the difference is negative; if they are equal, the difference is zero.

Subtraction is neither commutative nor associative. For that reason, it is often helpful to look at subtraction as addition of the minuend and the opposite of the subtrahend, that is a − b = a + (−b). When written as a sum, all the properties of addition hold.

There are several methods for calculating results, some of which are particularly advantageous to machine calculation. For example, digital computers employ the method of two's complement. Of great importance is the counting up method by which change is made. Suppose an amount P is given to pay the required amount Q, with P greater than Q. Rather than performing the subtraction P − Q and counting out that amount in change, money is counted out starting at Q and continuing until reaching P. Although the amount counted out must equal the result of the subtraction P − Q, the subtraction was never really done and the value of P − Q might still be unknown to the change-maker.

Multiplication (× or · or *)[link]

Multiplication is the second basic operation of arithmetic. Multiplication also combines two numbers into a single number, the product. The two original numbers are called the multiplier and the multiplicand, sometimes both simply called factors.

Multiplication is best viewed as a scaling operation. If the numbers are imagined as lying in a line, multiplication by a number, say Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): x , greater than 1 is the same as stretching everything away from zero uniformly, in such a way that the number 1 itself is stretched to where Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): x

was. Similarly, multiplying by a number less than 1 can be imagined as squeezing towards zero. (Again, in such a way that 1 goes to the multiplicand.)

Multiplication is commutative and associative; further it is distributive over addition and subtraction. The multiplicative identity is 1, that is, multiplying any number by 1 yields that same number. Also, the multiplicative inverse is the reciprocal of any number (except zero; zero is the only number without a multiplicative inverse), that is, multiplying the reciprocal of any number by the number itself yields the multiplicative identity.

The product of a and b is written as a × b or a • b. When a or b are expressions not written simply with digits, it is also written by simple juxtaposition: ab. In computer programming languages and software packages in which one can only use characters normally found on a keyboard, it is often written with an asterisk: a * b.

Division (÷ or /)[link]

Division is essentially the opposite of multiplication. Division finds the quotient of two numbers, the dividend divided by the divisor. Any dividend divided by zero is undefined. For positive numbers, if the dividend is larger than the divisor, the quotient is greater than one, otherwise it is less than one (a similar rule applies for negative numbers). The quotient multiplied by the divisor always yields the dividend.

Division is neither commutative nor associative. As it is helpful to look at subtraction as addition, it is helpful to look at division as multiplication of the dividend times the reciprocal of the divisor, that is a ÷ b = a × ¹/_b. When written as a product, it obeys all the properties of multiplication.

Decimal arithmetic[link]

Decimal representation refers exclusively, in common use, to the written numeral system employing arabic numerals as the digits for a radix 10 ("decimal)" positional notation; however, any numeral system based on powers of ten, e.g., Greek, Cyrillic, roman, or Chinese numerals may conceptually be described as "decimal notation" or "decimal representation".

Modern methods for four fundamental operations (addition, subtraction. multiplication and division) were first devised by Brahmagupta of India. This was known during medieval Europe as "Modus Indoram" or Method of the Indians. Positional notation (also known as "place-value notation") refers to the representation or encoding of numbers using the same symbol for the different orders of magnitude (e.g., the "ones place", "tens place", "hundreds place") and, with a radix point, using those same symbols to represent fractions (e.g., the "tenths place", “hundredths place"). For example, 507.36 denotes 5 hundreds (10²), plus 0 tens (10¹), plus 7 units (10⁰), plus 3 tenths (10⁻¹) plus 6 hundredths (10⁻²).

Zero as a number comparable to the other basic digits is a concept that is essential to this notation, as is the concept of zero’s use as a placeholder, and as is the definition of multiplication and addition with zero. The use of zero as a placeholder and, therefore, the use of a positional notation is first attested to in the Jain text from India entitled the Lokavibhâga, dated 458 AD and it was only in the early 13th century that these concepts, transmitted via the scholarship of the Arabic world, were introduced into Europe by Fibonacci^[3] using the Hindu-Arabic numeral system.

Algorism comprises all of the rules for performing arithmetic computations using this type of written numeral. For example, addition produces the sum of two arbitrary numbers. The result is calculated by the repeated addition of single digits from each number that occupies the same position, proceeding from right to left. An addition table with ten rows and ten columns displays all possible values for each sum. If an individual sum exceeds the value nine, the result is represented with two digits. The rightmost digit is the value for the current position, and the result for the subsequent addition of the digits to the left increases by the value of the second (leftmost) digit, which is always one. This adjustment is termed a carry of the value one.

The process for multiplying two arbitrary numbers is similar to the process for addition. A multiplication table with ten rows and ten columns lists the results for each pair of digits. If an individual product of a pair of digits exceeds nine, the carry adjustment increases the result of any subsequent multiplication from digits to the left by a value equal to the second (leftmost) digit, which is any value from one to eight (9 × 9 = 81). Additional steps define the final result.

Similar techniques exist for subtraction and division.

The creation of a correct process for multiplication relies on the relationship between values of adjacent digits. The value for any single digit in a numeral depends on its position. Also, each position to the left represents a value ten times larger than the position to the right. In mathematical terms, the exponent for the radix (base) of ten increases by one (to the left) or decreases by one (to the right). Therefore, the value for any arbitrary digit is multiplied by a value of the form 10ⁿ with integer n. The list of values corresponding to all possible positions for a single digit is written as {..., 10², 10, 1, 10⁻¹, 10⁻², ...}.

Repeated multiplication of any value in this list by ten produces another value in the list. In mathematical terminology, this characteristic is defined as closure, and the previous list is described as closed under multiplication. It is the basis for correctly finding the results of multiplication using the previous technique. This outcome is one example of the uses of number theory.

Compound Unit Arithmetic[link]

Compound^[4] Unit Arithmetic is the application of arithmetic operations to mixed radix quantities such as feet and inches, gallons and pints, pounds shillings and pence and so on. Prior to the use of decimal-based systems of money and units of measure, the use of compound unit arithmetic formed a significant part of commerce and industry.

Basic arithmetic operations[link]

The techniques used for compound unit arithmetic was developed over many centuries and are well documented in many textbooks in many different languages.^{[5][6][7][8][9]} In addition to the basic arithmetic functions encountered in decimal arithmetic, compound unit arithmetic employs three more functions:

• Reduction where a compound quantity is reduced to a single quantity, for example conversion of a distance expressed in yards, feet and inches to one expressed in inches.^[10]
• Expansion, the inverse function to reduction, is the conversion of a quantity that is expressed as a single unit of measure to a compound unit, such as expanding 24 oz to 1 lb, 8 oz.
• Normalisation is the conversion of a set of compound units to a standard form - for example rewriting "1 ft 13 in" as "2 ft 1 in".

Knowledge of the relationship between the various units of measure, their multiples and their submultiples forms an essential part of compound unit arithmetic.

Principles of compound unit arithmetic[link]

There are two basic approaches to compound unit arithmetic:

• Reduction-Expansion Method where all the compound unit variables are reduced to single unit variables, the calculation performed and the result expanded back to compound units. This approach suited for automated calculations. A typical example is the handling of time by Microsoft Excel where all time intervals are processed internally as days and decimal fractions of a day.
• On going Normalisation Method in which each unit is treated separately and the problem is continuously normalised as the solution develops. This approach, which is widely described in classical texts, is best suited for manual calculations.

An example of the on-going normalisation method as applied to addition is shown below.

The addition operation is carried out from right to left; in this case, pence are processed first, then shillings followed by pounds. The numbers below the "answer line" are intermediate results.

The total in the pence column is 25. Since there are 12 pennies in a shilling, the number 24 is divided by 12 to give 2 with a remainder of 1. The value "1" is then written to the answer row and the value "2" carried forward to the shillings column. This operation is repeated using the values in the shillings column, with the additional step of adding the value that was carried forward from the pennies column. The intermediate total is divided by 20 rather than 12 as there are 20 shillings in a pound. The pound column is then processed, but as pounds are the largest unit that is being considered, no values are carried forward from the pounds column.

It should be noted that for the sake of simplicity, the example chosen did not have farthings.

Operations in practice[link]

A scale calibrated in imperial units with an associated cost display.

During the nineteenth and twentieth century various aids were developed to aid the manipulation of compound units, particularly in commercial applications. The most common aids were mechanical tills which were adapted in countries such as the United Kingdom to accommodate pounds, shillings, pennies and farthings and "Ready Reckoners" - books aimed at traders that catalogued the results of various routine calculations such as the percentages or multiples of various sums of money. One typical booklet^[11] that ran to 150 pages tabulated multiples "from one to ten thousand at the various prices from one farthing to one pound".

The cumbersome nature of compound unit arithmetic has been recognised for many years - in 1586, the Flemish mathematician Simon Stevin published a small pamphlet called De Thiende ("the tenth").^[12] in which he declared that the universal introduction of decimal coinage, measures, and weights to be merely a question of time while in the modern era, many conversion programs, such as that embedded in the calculator supplied as a standard part of the Microsoft Windows 7 operating system display compound units in a reduced decimal format rather than using an expanded format (ie "2.5 ft" is displayed rather than "2 ft, 6  in").

Number theory[link]

The term arithmetic also refers to number theory. This includes the properties of integers related to primality, divisibility, and the solution of equations in integers, as well as modern research that is an outgrowth of this study. It is in this context that one runs across the fundamental theorem of arithmetic and arithmetic functions. A Course in Arithmetic by Jean-Pierre Serre reflects this usage, as do such phrases as first order arithmetic or arithmetical algebraic geometry. Number theory is also referred to as the higher arithmetic, as in the title of Harold Davenport's book on the subject.

Arithmetic in education[link]

Primary education in mathematics often places a strong focus on algorithms for the arithmetic of natural numbers, integers, fractions, and decimals (using the decimal place-value system). This study is sometimes known as algorism.

The difficulty and unmotivated appearance of these algorithms has long led educators to question this curriculum, advocating the early teaching of more central and intuitive mathematical ideas. One notable movement in this direction was the New Math of the 1960s and 1970s, which attempted to teach arithmetic in the spirit of axiomatic development from set theory, an echo of the prevailing trend in higher mathematics.^[13]

See also[link]

• Lists of mathematics topics
• Mathematics
• Outline of arithmetic

Related topics[link]

Notes[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Look up arithmetic in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikibooks has more on the topic of Arithmetic

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Arithmetic

• What is arithmetic?
• MathWorld article about arithmetic
• Interactive Arithmetic Lessons and Practice
• Talking Math Game for kids
• The New Student's Reference Work/Arithmetic (historical)
• Arithmetic Game
• Math Games for kids and adults
• The Great Calculation According to the Indians, of Maximus Planudes – an early Western work on arithmetic at Convergence

Brooke Fraser
Background information
Birth name	Brooke Gabrielle Fraser
Born	(1983-12-15) 15 December 1983 (age 28) Wellington, New Zealand
Origin	Wellington, New Zealand
Genres	Pop, folk rock
Years active	2002–present
Labels	Sony Music, Wood + Bone
Associated acts	Hillsong
Website	www.brookefraser.com

Brooke Gabrielle Fraser Ligertwood, better known as Brooke Fraser (born 15 December 1983) is a New Zealand born award-winning folk-pop and Christian music^[1][2] artist. Her third studio album Flags has become the most successful album of her career, with the single "Something in the Water" reaching number one on the RIANZ singles chart in 2010.

Early life[link]

Fraser is the eldest of the three children born to former All Black Bernie Fraser,^[3] who was born in Lautoka, Fiji, and his wife Lynda Fraser.^[4] She grew up in Naenae, Lower Hutt and attended Dyer Street School, Naenae Intermediate School and Naenae College.^[5]

Fraser took piano lessons between the ages of seven and seventeen. She started writing songs at age twelve and taught herself the acoustic guitar at fifteen. Despite her skills as a singer she has never taken singing lessons.^[5]

She performed at Parachute, an annual New Zealand music festival in 2000 – including a special guest performance in 2007.^[5]

She began writing for the Soul Purpose magazine at age fifteen, and was later made editor in 2002. She gave up her job as editor shortly after moving to Auckland in late 2002 in order to pursue her music career.^[6]

Musical career[link]

In 2002, while Fraser was in Auckland, Scotty Pearson, the drummer for Elemeno P, organised a meeting with producer Matty J for her. Matty J became her manager, liaising with the major labels who had shown interest and compared their offers. Fraser had about five different labels offer her deals and chose to sign a multi-album deal with Sony Music at the age of 17.^[7]

[edit] What to Do With Daylight

Fraser's first album, What to Do with Daylight, was released in New Zealand in late 2003, debuting at number one and achieved gold status in the same week. The album eventually went seven times platinum,^[8] selling over 105,000 copies in New Zealand alone.^[9] It remained on the album charts for sixty-six weeks.^[10] All five singles from the album reached the top twenty in the New Zealand Singles Chart.^[11] Her album also topped the New Zealand Top 50 Albums of 2004.^[12]

Following the release of What to Do with Daylight, Fraser toured Australia and New Zealand with American artist John Mayer and then toured New Zealand with veteran U.K. rock artist David Bowie.^[13][14] Whilst on tour with John Mayer, she met with his guitarist and keyboardist Michael Chaves who, after recording Mayer's album Heavier Things, Fraser enlisted to play on her album and future concerts.^[15]

[edit] Albertine

In 2005, prior to writing and preparing her follow-up album, Fraser took a trip to Africa to immerse herself in Rwanda before visiting her sponsor children in Tanzania, as she is an advocate for child sponsorship. In this trip, she was so moved that she wrote the song Albertine about a young child (named Albertine), whom she met while in Rwanda. It was later decided to make this song the album's title track.^[16]

Fraser performing in Seattle, 8 December 2010

For the second album, Fraser decided to enlist a new band, primarily constructed from American musicians who'd worked with an array of notable artists, both live and recorded.^[17] In 2006, Fraser and the band went into the studio in Los Angeles to record the album. Later Fraser allowed her fans to listen to the album's first single Deciphering Me via her MySpace page. The single was later released initially to radio and ultimately to CD single, and achieved number four in the New Zealand single charts.

On 4 December 2006 Albertine was released in New Zealand, achieving double platinum status less than a month after its release and has remained, to date, in the top 20 every week since. The album was released in Australia and internationally on 31 March 2007. In Australia, it charted at number twenty-nine in its first week on 9 April and has thus far achieved Gold sales status.

On 6 April 2007, Fraser performed "Deciphering Me" for the Good Friday Appeal, an annual televised fundraising event to raise money for the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne.

In 2008, Fraser appeared on the Dave Barnes song "Believe" from his album Me + You + the World, performing backing vocals.

Albertine was also Fraser's U.S. debut, released 27 May 2008 and entered the Billboard 200 at number ninety on 19 July 2008. Her album propelled in success with online sales after being chosen as Editor's Choice on iTunes. On 4 July 2008 Fraser supported Canadian artist/U2 collaborator Daniel Lanois at the Montreal Jazz Festival. In August she toured the southern U.S.^[18] In September, she re-toured several major U.S. cities and completed the tour at the Shepherd's Bush Empire in London, UK.

[edit] Flags

Flags was recorded at East West Studios in Hollywood in the summer of 2010 ^[19] and released by Wood & Bone Records on 12 October 2010. Fraser celebrated with sold-out tours in the U.S., Australia and New Zealand. Flags reached the #1 spot on the New Zealand album chart,^[20] #3 in Australia,^[21] and entered at #59 on the Billboard 200 in the US,^[22] and climbed as high as #3 on the U.S iTunes album chart. "Flags" has been certified Gold in Australia and 3x Platinum in New Zealand where it was the 6th highest selling album of 2010.^[23] The first single, “Something in the Water,” has achieved extensive radio success across the globe, notably receiving BBC Radio 2 A-list rotation upon release.^[24] The single has gone on to achieve double platinum sales in NZ where it spent 21 weeks in the 2010 singles chart.^[25] The single has reached #2 in the Dutch airplay chart whilst residing in the top 5 singles chart for 6 consecutive weeks.^[26] The single has charted in Poland and Belgium at #15 and #23 respectively,^[27] as well as being certified Gold in both Germany and Italy.^[28] Flags was released in July 2011 in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and debuted in the following positions: #6 in Germany, #33 in Austria & #24 in Switzerland. One month on from release, "Flags" remained in the German top 20 at #13 and "Something in the Water" on the singles charts at #8. "Flags" was released in October 2011 in Hungary, reaching #15 on the national album chart by 2nd week of release.^[29] Flags is due to be released in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland on 7 November 2011.^[27] Flags has received accolades from peers and press alike. Sara Bareilles announced to her 2 million followers on Twitter "If you don’t know her, you should. @brookefraser is a freakin gem. New album out now. Yay." and Women’s Wear Daily has called Brooke "The Kiwi Norah Jones."^[30][31]

In its review of Flags, Glide Magazine said: "Brooke Fraser’s third release, Flags, is a wonder. From the stunning lyrical imagery throughout to the impressive guest vocalists who join her (Cary Brothers, Jon Foreman and Aqualung among them), from Fraser’s ethereal and breathy performances to the wide-ranging soundscapes, this record is drenched in beauty and stands as one of the more remarkable achievements of 2010."^[32]

In support of "Flags" release in Switzerland, Brooke will be appearing in November 2011 at the “ENERGY STARS FOR FREE” event in Zurich alongside Lenny Kravitz and Snow Patrol.^[33]

Personal life[link]

After the success of her first album, Fraser moved to Sydney, where she has lived since 2004. On 17 March 2008 she married Scott Ligertwood, in Sydney, changing her name to Brooke Ligertwood.^[34] "Brooke Fraser" has remained her stage name for her activity as a Sony BMG recording/touring artist. She continues to write songs for Hillsong Church, now as "Brooke Ligertwood". Among her notable congregational songs are "Desert Song" and "Hosanna". After touring her second album Albertine for almost 4 years, Fraser returned home to Sydney. She took almost a year off from music-making. After attending the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in the US and seeing Fleet Foxes ^[35] set she was inspired to work on her latest album Flags.^[36]

Fraser also runs a blog from her website where she comments on everything from touring, to fashion and food.^[37]

Philanthropy[link]

Fraser has enjoyed success in her career for many years, and she has always used her position to highlight many worthy causes and charity projects, and raising large amounts of money for them in the process. In late 2010 whilst on tour in the U.S. promoting her third album Flags, Fraser, in conjunction with charity: water ran a birthday campaign asking her fans to donate $27 in honor of her 27th birthday. The goal was to raise $50,000 to build clean water wells in Ethiopia.^[38] Joining the likes of Justin Bieber,^[39] Will Smith^[40] and Adam Lambert^[41] Fraser's birthday campaign was a success raising over $54,000. She has vowed to continue her work with charity: water on future projects.

Fraser has worked with World Vision as an Artist Associate since 2001. She has visited Cambodia and Tanzania with World Vision, the Philippines with Opportunity International and independently traveled to Rwanda in June 2005, in June 2006 as part of charity event "Hope Rwanda", and in May 2007 when she filmed the music video for the song "Albertine" off her second studio album of the same name. In 2006 she, along with Petra Bagust and Tau from Spacifix, appeared in an advertisement for the World Vision 40 Hour Famine; an event which raises funds for children in third world countries. She also sponsors eleven children through World Vision^[42] and makes child ways of contributing to the work of World Vision (i.e. fundraising t-shirts etc.).

Discography[link]

Studio albums

• What to Do with Daylight (2003)
• Albertine (2006)
• Flags (2010)

Awards and nominations[link]

APRA Awards

New Zealand Music Awards

GMA Dove Awards

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Brooke Fraser

• Official Brooke Fraser website
• Brooke Fraser at Allmusic
• Brooke Fraser on Myspace
• New Zealand Herald article

Bill Clinton
42nd President of the United States
In office January 20, 1993 – January 20, 2001
Vice President	Al Gore
Preceded by	George H. W. Bush
Succeeded by	George W. Bush
40th and 42nd Governor of Arkansas
In office January 11, 1983 – December 12, 1992
Lieutenant	Winston Bryant Jim Tucker
Preceded by	Frank White
Succeeded by	Jim Tucker
In office January 9, 1979 – January 19, 1981
Lieutenant	Joe Purcell
Preceded by	Joe Purcell as Acting Governor
Succeeded by	Frank White
50th Attorney General of Arkansas
In office January 3, 1977 – January 9, 1979
Governor	David Pryor Joe Purcell (Acting)
Preceded by	Jim Tucker
Succeeded by	Steve Clark
Personal details
Born	William Jefferson Blythe III (1946-08-19) August 19, 1946 (age 65) Hope, Arkansas, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Hillary Rodham (m. 1975-present)
Children	Chelsea (b. 1980)
Alma mater	Georgetown University University College, Oxford Yale Law School
Profession	Lawyer
Religion	Baptist
Signature
Website	Clinton Presidential Library

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III; August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation. Clinton has been described as a New Democrat. Many of his policies have been attributed to a centrist Third Way philosophy of governance.

Born and raised in Arkansas, Clinton became both a student leader and a skilled musician. He is an alumnus of Georgetown University where he was Phi Beta Kappa and earned a Rhodes Scholarship to attend the University of Oxford. He is married to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has served as the United States Secretary of State since 2009 and was a Senator from New York from 2001 to 2009. Both Clintons received law degrees from Yale Law School, where they met and began dating. As Governor of Arkansas, Clinton overhauled the state's education system, and served as Chair of the National Governors Association.

Clinton was elected president in 1992, defeating incumbent president George H.W. Bush. As president, Clinton presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history. He signed into law the North American Free Trade Agreement. He implemented Don't ask, don't tell, a controversial intermediate step to full gay military integration. After a failed health care reform attempt, Republicans won control of Congress in 1994, for the first time in forty years. Two years later, the re-elected Clinton became the first member of the Democratic Party since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win a second full term as president. He successfully passed welfare reform and the State Children's Health Insurance Program, providing health coverage for millions of children. Later, he was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice in a scandal involving a White House intern, but was acquitted by the U.S. Senate and served his complete term of office. The Congressional Budget Office reported a budget surplus between the years 1998 and 2000, the last three years of Clinton's presidency.

Clinton left office with the highest end-of-office approval rating of any U.S. president since World War II. Since then, he has been involved in public speaking and humanitarian work. Based on his philanthropic worldview, Clinton created the William J. Clinton Foundation to promote and address international causes such as prevention of AIDS and global warming. In 2004, he released his autobiography My Life, and was involved in his wife's and then Barack Obama's campaigns for president in 2008. In 2009, he was named United Nations Special Envoy to Haiti, and after the 2010 earthquake he teamed with George W. Bush to form the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. Since leaving office, Clinton has been rated highly in public opinion polls of U.S. presidents.

Early life and career[link]

William Jefferson Blythe III, in 1950 at age four

Bill Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe, III, at Julia Chester Hospital in Hope, Arkansas.^[1][2] His father, William Jefferson Blythe, Jr., was a traveling salesman who died in an automobile accident three months before Bill was born.^[3] His mother Virginia Dell Cassidy (1923–1994) traveled to New Orleans to study nursing soon after he was born. She left Bill in Hope with grandparents Eldridge and Edith Cassidy, who owned and ran a small grocery store.^[2] At a time when the Southern United States was segregated racially, Bill's grandparents sold goods on credit to people of all races.^[2] In 1950, Bill's mother returned from nursing school and married Roger Clinton, Sr., who owned an automobile dealership in Hot Springs, Arkansas with his brother.^[2] The family moved to Hot Springs in 1950.

Bill Clinton boyhood home in Hope, Arkansas

Although he assumed use of his stepfather's surname, it was not until Billy (as he was known then) turned fifteen^[4] that he formally adopted the surname Clinton as a gesture toward his stepfather.^[2] Clinton says he remembers his stepfather as a gambler and an alcoholic who regularly abused his mother and half-brother, Roger Clinton, Jr., to the point where he intervened multiple times with the threat of violence to protect them.^[2][5]

In Hot Springs, Clinton attended St. John's Catholic Elementary School, Ramble Elementary School, and Hot Springs High School – where he was an active student leader, avid reader, and musician.^[2] He was in the chorus and played the tenor saxophone, winning first chair in the state band's saxophone section. He briefly considered dedicating his life to music, but as he noted in his autobiography My Life:

"Sometime in my sixteenth year, I decided I wanted to be in public life as an elected official. I loved music and thought I could be very good, but I knew I would never be John Coltrane or Stan Getz. I was interested in medicine and thought I could be a fine doctor, but I knew I would never be Michael DeBakey. But I knew I could be great in public service."^[2]

Clinton has named two influential moments in his life that contributed to his decision to become a public figure, both occurring in 1963. One was his visit as a Boys Nation senator to the White House to meet President John F. Kennedy.^[2][5] The other was listening to Martin Luther King's 1963 I Have a Dream speech, which impressed him enough that he later memorized it.^[6]

College and law school years[link]

Clinton ran for President of the Student Council while attending the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

With the aid of scholarships, Clinton attended the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., receiving a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service (B.S.) degree in 1968. He spent the summer of 1967, the summer before his senior year, interning for Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright.^[2] While in college, he became a brother of Alpha Phi Omega and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Clinton was also a member of the Order of DeMolay, a youth group affiliated with Freemasonry, but he never became a Freemason.^[7] He is a member of Kappa Kappa Psi honorary band fraternity.^[8]

Upon graduation, he won a Rhodes Scholarship to University College, Oxford where he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics, though because he had switched programs and had left early for Yale University, he did not receive a degree there.^[5][9] He developed an interest in rugby union, playing at Oxford^[10] and later for the Little Rock Rugby club in Arkansas. While at Oxford he also participated in Vietnam War protests and organized an October 1969 Moratorium event.^[2]

Clinton's political opponents charge that to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam War during his college years, he used the political influence of a U.S. Senator, who employed him as an aide.^[11] Col. Eugene Holmes, an Army officer who was involved in Clinton's case, issued a notarized statement during the 1992 presidential campaign: "I was informed by the draft board that it was of interest to Senator Fullbright's office that Bill Clinton, a Rhodes Scholar, should be admitted to the ROTC program... I believe that he purposely deceived me, using the possibility of joining the ROTC as a ploy to work with the draft board to delay his induction and get a new draft classification."^[12][13] Although legal, Clinton's actions were criticized by conservatives and some Vietnam veterans during his presidential campaign in 1992.^[14][15][16]

After Oxford, Clinton attended Yale Law School and earned a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree in 1973.^[5] In a Yale library in 1971 he met fellow law student Hillary Rodham, who was a year ahead of him.^[17] They began dating and soon were inseparable. After only about a month, Clinton proposed to Rodham and postponed his plans to be a coordinator for the McGovern campaign for the 1972 United States presidential election in order to move in with her in California.^[18] They later married on October 11, 1975, and their only child, Chelsea, was born on February 27, 1980.^[17]

Clinton did eventually move to Texas with Rodham to take a job leading McGovern's effort there in 1972. He spent considerable time in Dallas, at the campaign's local headquarters on Lemmon Avenue, where he had an office. There, Clinton worked with future two-term mayor of Dallas, Ron Kirk, future governor of Texas, Ann Richards, and then unknown television director (and future filmmaker), Steven Spielberg.

Political career 1978–1992[link]

Governor of Arkansas[link]

After graduating from Yale Law School, Clinton returned to Arkansas and became a law professor at the University of Arkansas. A year later, he ran for the House of Representatives in 1974. The incumbent, Republican John Paul Hammerschmidt, defeated Clinton in the general election by a 52% to 48% margin. With only minor opposition in the primary and no opposition at all in the general election,^[19] Clinton was elected Arkansas Attorney General in 1976.^[5]

Clinton, as the newly elected Governor of Arkansas, meeting with President Jimmy Carter in 1978

Clinton was elected Governor of Arkansas in 1978, having defeated the Republican candidate Lynn Lowe, a farmer from Texarkana. He became the youngest governor in the country at 32. Due to his youthful appearance, Clinton was often called the "Boy Governor", a referent that continues to be used to refer to him during his gubernatorial era on occasion.^[20][21][22] He worked on educational reform and Arkansas's roads, with wife Hillary leading a successful committee on urban health care reform. However, his term included an unpopular motor vehicle tax and citizens' anger over the escape of Cuban refugees (from the Mariel boatlift) detained in Fort Chaffee in 1980. Monroe Schwarzlose of Kingsland in Cleveland County, polled 31% of the vote against Clinton in the Democratic gubernatorial primary of 1980. Some suggested Schwarzlose's unexpected voter turnout foreshadowed Clinton's defeat in the general election that year by Republican challenger Frank D. White. As Clinton once joked, he was the youngest ex-governor in the nation's history.^[5]

Clinton joined friend Bruce Lindsey's Little Rock law firm of Wright, Lindsey and Jennings.^[23] In 1982, he was again elected governor and kept this job for ten years.^[19] He helped Arkansas transform its economy and significantly improve the state's educational system. He became a leading figure among the New Democrats.^[24][25] The New Democrats, organized as the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), were a branch of the Democratic Party that called for welfare reform and smaller government, a policy supported by both Democrats and Republicans. He gave the Democratic response to President Reagan's 1985 State of the Union Address and served as Chair of the National Governors Association from 1986 to 1987, bringing him to an audience beyond Arkansas.^[5] Clinton made economic growth, job creation and educational improvement high priorities. For senior citizens, he removed the sales tax from medications and increased the home property-tax exemption.^[24]

In the early 1980s, Clinton made reform of the Arkansas education system a top priority. The Arkansas Education Standards Committee, chaired by Clinton's wife, attorney and Legal Services Corporation chair Hillary Rodham Clinton, succeeded in reforming the education system, transforming it from the worst in the nation into one of the best. Many have considered this the greatest achievement of the Clinton governorship. Clinton and the committee were responsible for state educational improvement programs, notably more spending for schools, rising opportunities for gifted children, an increase in vocational education, raising of teachers' salaries, inclusion of a wider variety of courses, and compulsory teacher testing for aspiring educators.^[5][24] He defeated four Republican candidates for governor: Lowe (1978), White (1982 and 1986), and businessmen Woody Freeman of Jonesboro, (1984) and Sheffield Nelson of Little Rock (1990).^[19]

The Clintons' personal and business affairs during the 1980s included transactions that became the basis of the Whitewater investigation that dogged his later presidential administration.^[26] After extensive investigation over several years, no indictments were made against the Clintons related to the years in Arkansas.^[5][27]

According to some sources, Clinton was in his early years a death penalty opponent who switched positions.^[28][29] During Clinton's term, Arkansas performed its first executions since 1964 (the death penalty had been re-enacted on March 23, 1973).^[30] As Governor, he oversaw four executions: one by electric chair and three by lethal injection. Later, as president, Clinton was the first President to pardon a death-row inmate since the federal death penalty was reintroduced in 1988.^[31]

Democratic presidential primaries of 1988[link]

Governor and Mrs. Clinton attend the Dinner Honoring the Nation's Governors in the White House with President Ronald Reagan and first lady Nancy Reagan, 1987.

In 1987, there was media speculation Clinton would enter the race after then-New York Governor Mario Cuomo declined to run and Democratic front-runner Gary Hart withdrew owing to revelations of marital infidelity. Clinton decided to remain as Arkansas governor (following consideration for the potential candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton for governor, initially favored – but ultimately vetoed – by the First Lady).^[32] For the nomination, Clinton endorsed Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis. He gave the nationally televised opening night address at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, which at 33 minutes was criticized for being too long.^[33] Presenting himself as a moderate and a member of the New Democrat wing of the Democratic Party, he headed the moderate Democratic Leadership Council in 1990 and 1991.^[24][34]

1992 presidential campaign[link]

In the first primary contest, the Iowa caucus, Clinton finished a distant third to Iowa Senator Tom Harkin. During the campaign for the New Hampshire primary, reports of an extramarital affair with Gennifer Flowers surfaced. As Clinton fell far behind former Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas in the New Hampshire polls,^[5] following Super Bowl XXVI, Clinton and his wife Hillary went on 60 Minutes to rebuff the charges. Their television appearance was a calculated risk, but Clinton regained several delegates. He finished second to Tsongas in the New Hampshire primary, but after trailing badly in the polls and coming within single digits of winning, the media viewed it as a victory. News outlets labeled him "The Comeback Kid" for earning a firm second-place finish.^[35]

Winning the big prizes of Florida and Texas and many of the Southern primaries on Super Tuesday gave Clinton a sizable delegate lead. However, former California Governor Jerry Brown was scoring victories and Clinton had yet to win a significant contest outside his native South.^[5][34] With no major Southern state remaining, Clinton targeted New York, which had many delegates. He scored a resounding victory in New York City, shedding his image as a regional candidate.^[34] Having been transformed into the consensus candidate, he secured the Democratic Party nomination, finishing with a victory in Jerry Brown's home state of California.^[5]

Clinton family in White House

During the campaign, questions of conflict of interest regarding state business and the politically powerful Rose Law Firm, at which Hillary Rodham Clinton was a partner, arose. Clinton argued the questions were moot because all transactions with the state had been deducted before determining Hillary's firm pay.^[2][36] Further concern arose when Bill Clinton announced that, with Hillary, voters would be getting two presidents "for the price of one".^[37]

While campaigning for U.S. President, the then Governor Clinton returned to Arkansas to see that Ricky Ray Rector would be executed. After killing a police officer and a civilian, Rector shot himself in the head, leading to what his lawyers said was a state where he could still talk but did not understand the idea of death. According to Arkansas state and Federal law, a seriously mentally impaired inmate cannot be executed. The courts disagreed with the allegation of grave mental impairment and allowed the execution. Clinton's return to Arkansas for the execution was framed in a The New York Times article as a possible political move to counter "soft on crime" accusations.^[28][38]

Because Bush's approval ratings were in the 80% range during the Gulf War, he was described as unbeatable. However, when Bush compromised with Democrats to try to lower Federal deficits, he reneged on his promise not to raise taxes, hurting his approval rating. Clinton repeatedly condemned Bush for making a promise he failed to keep.^[34] By election time, the economy was souring and Bush saw his approval rating plummet to just slightly over 40%.^[34][39] Finally, conservatives were previously united by anti-communism, but with the end of the Cold War, the party lacked a uniting issue. When Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson addressed Christian themes at the Republican National Convention – with Bush criticizing Democrats for omitting God from their platform – many moderates were alienated.^[40] Clinton then pointed to his moderate, "New Democrat" record as governor of Arkansas, though some on the more liberal side of the party remained suspicious.^[41] Many Democrats who had supported Ronald Reagan and Bush in previous elections switched their support to Clinton.^[42] Clinton and his running mate, Al Gore, toured the country during the final weeks of the campaign, shoring up support and pledging a "new beginning".^[42]

Clinton won the 1992 presidential election (43.0% of the vote) against Republican incumbent George H. W. Bush (37.4% of the vote) and billionaire populist Ross Perot, who ran as an independent (18.9% of the vote) on a platform focusing on domestic issues; a significant part of Clinton's success was Bush's steep decline in public approval.^[42] Clinton's election ended twelve years of Republican rule of the White House and twenty of the previous twenty-four years. The election gave Democrats full control of the United States Congress,^[3] the first time one party controlled both the executive and legislative branches since Democrats held the 95th United States Congress during the Jimmy Carter presidency in the late 1970s.^[43]

Presidency, 1993–2001[link]

Countries visited by President Clinton during his terms in office

During his presidency, Clinton advocated for a wide variety of legislation and programs, much of which was enacted into law or was implemented by the executive branch. Some of his policies, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and welfare reform, have been attributed to a centrist Third Way philosophy of governance, while on other issues his stance was left-of-center.^[44][45] Clinton presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history.^[46][47][48] The Congressional Budget Office reported budget surpluses of $69 billion in 1998, $126 billion in 1999, and $236 billion in 2000,^[49] during the last three years of Clinton's presidency.^[50] At the end of his presidency, Clinton moved to New York and helped his wife win election to the U.S. Senate there.

First term, 1993–1997[link]

Clinton takes the oath of office during his 1993 presidential inauguration on January 20, 1993.	First inauguration of Bill Clinton (January 20, 1993) Video of the First inauguration of Bill Clinton. First inauguration of Bill Clinton (January 20, 1993) audio only version
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Clinton was inaugurated as the 42nd President of the United States on January 20, 1993. Shortly after taking office, Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 on February 5, which required large employers to allow employees to take unpaid leave for pregnancy or a serious medical condition. This action had bipartisan support,^[51] and proved quite popular with the public.^[52]

Budget Deficit in Billions of Dollars (1971-2001). There were budget surpluses from 1998-2001.

On February 15, 1993, Clinton made his first address to the nation, announcing his plan to raise taxes to cap the budget deficit.^[53] Two days later, in a nationally televised address to a joint session of Congress, Clinton unveiled his economic plan. The plan focused on reducing the deficit rather than on cutting taxes for the middle class, which had been high on his campaign agenda.^[54] Clinton's advisers pressured him to raise taxes on the theory that a smaller federal budget deficit would reduce bond interest rates.^[55]

On May 19, 1993, Clinton fired seven employees of the White House Travel Office, causing a controversy even though the Travel Office staff served at the pleasure of the President, who could dismiss them without cause. The White House responded to the controversy by claiming the firings were done because of financial improprieties that had been revealed by a brief FBI investigation.^[56] Critics contended the firings had been done to allow friends of the Clintons to take over the travel business and that the involvement of the FBI was unwarranted.^[57]

Clinton signed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 in August of that year, which passed Congress without a Republican vote. It cut taxes for fifteen million low-income families, made tax cuts available to 90% of small businesses,^[59] and raised taxes on the wealthiest 1.2% of taxpayers. Additionally, through the implementation of spending restraints, it mandated the budget be balanced over a number of years.^[60]

Clinton, Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat during the Oslo Accords on 13 September 1993.

Clinton made a major speech to Congress regarding a health care reform plan on September 22, 1993, aimed at achieving universal coverage through a national health care plan. This was one of the most prominent items on Clinton's legislative agenda, and resulted from a task force headed by Hillary Clinton. Though at first well received in political circles, it was eventually doomed by well-organized opposition from conservatives, the American Medical Association, and the health insurance industry. However, John F. Harris, a biographer of Clinton's, states the program failed because of a lack of coordination within the White House.^[27] Despite the Democratic majority in Congress, the effort to create a national health care system ultimately died when compromise legislation by George J. Mitchell failed to gain a majority of support in August 1994. It was the first major legislative defeat of Clinton's administration.^[24][27]

In November 1993, David Hale, the source of criminal allegations against Bill Clinton in the Whitewater affair, alleged that Clinton, while governor of Arkansas, pressured him to provide an illegal $300,000 loan to Susan McDougal, the partner of the Clintons in the Whitewater land deal.^[61] A U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation did result in convictions against the McDougals for their role in the Whitewater project, but the Clintons themselves were never charged, and Clinton maintains innocence in the affair.

Clinton signed the Brady Bill into law on November 30, 1993, which imposed a five-day waiting period on handgun purchases. He also expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit, a subsidy for low-income workers.^[27]

In December of that year, allegations by Arkansas state troopers Larry Patterson and Roger Perry were first reported by David Brock in the American Spectator. Later known as Troopergate, the allegations by these men were that they arranged sexual liaisons for Bill Clinton back when he was governor of Arkansas. The story mentioned a woman named Paula, a reference to Paula Jones. Brock later apologized to Clinton, saying the article was politically motivated "bad journalism" and that "the troopers were greedy and had slimy motives."^[62]

	Remarks on the Signing of NAFTA (December 8, 1993) Clinton's December 8, 1993 remarks on the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement Remarks on the Signing of NAFTA (December 8, 1993) audio only version
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That month, Clinton implemented a Department of Defense directive known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", which allowed gay men and women to serve in the armed services provided they kept their sexuality a secret, and forbade the military from inquiring about an individual's sexual orientation. This move garnered criticism from the left (for being too tentative in promoting gay rights) and from the right (who opposed any effort to allow gays to serve). Some gay-rights advocates criticized Clinton for not going far enough and accused him of making his campaign promise to get votes and contributions.^[63] Their position was that Clinton should have integrated the military by executive order, noting that President Harry Truman used executive order to racially desegregate the armed forces. Clinton's defenders argue that an executive order might have prompted the Senate to write the exclusion of gays into law, potentially making it harder to integrate the military in the future.^[24] Later in his presidency, in 1999, Clinton criticized the way the policy was implemented, saying he did not think any serious person could say it was not "out of whack."^[64] The policy remained controversial, and was finally repealed in 2011, removing open sexual preference as a reason for dismissal from the armed forces.^[65]

On January 1, 1994, Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement into law.^[66] Throughout his first year in office, Clinton consistently supported ratification of the treaty by the U.S. Senate. Clinton and most of his allies in the Democratic Leadership Committee strongly supported free trade measures; there remained, however, strong disagreement within the party. Opposition came chiefly from anti-trade Republicans, protectionist Democrats and supporters of Ross Perot. The bill passed the house with 234 votes against 200 opposed (132 Republicans and 102 Democrats voting in favor; 156 Democrats, 43 Republicans, and 1 independent against). The treaty was then ratified by the Senate and signed into law by the President.^[66]

Clinton's 1994 Omnibus Crime Bill made many changes to U.S. law, including the expansion of the death penalty to include crimes not resulting in death, such as running a large-scale drug enterprise. During Clinton's re-election campaign he said, "My 1994 crime bill expanded the death penalty for drug kingpins, murderers of federal law enforcement officers, and nearly 60 additional categories of violent felons."^[67]

The Clinton administration also launched the first official White House website, whitehouse.gov, on October 21, 1994.^[69][70] It was followed by three more versions, resulting in the final edition launched in 2000.^[71][72] The White House website was part of a wider movement of the Clinton administration toward web-based communication. According to Robert Longley, "Clinton and Gore were responsible for pressing almost all federal agencies, the U.S. court system and the U.S. military onto the Internet, thus opening up America's government to more of America's citizens than ever before. On July 17, 1996, Clinton issued Executive Order 13011 – Federal Information Technology, ordering the heads of all federal agencies to utilize information technology fully to make the information of the agency easily accessible to the public."^[73]

After two years of Democratic Party control, the Democrats lost control of Congress in the mid-term elections in 1994, for the first time in forty years.^[74]

Clinton and Boris Yeltsin share a laugh in October 1995.

Law professor Ken Gromley's book The Death of American Virtue reveals that Clinton escaped a 1996 assassination attempt in the Philippines by terrorists working for Osama bin Laden.^[75] During his visit to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Manila in 1996, he was saved shortly before his car was due to drive over a bridge where a bomb had been planted. Gromley said he was told the details of the bomb plot by Louis Merletti, a former director of the Secret Service. Clinton was scheduled to visit a local politician in central Manila, when secret service officers intercepted a message suggesting that an attack was imminent. A transmission used the words "bridge" and "wedding", supposedly a terrorist's code words for assassination. The motorcade was re-routed and the US agents later discovered a bomb planted under the bridge. The report said the subsequent US investigation into the plot "revealed that it was masterminded by a Saudi terrorist living in Afghanistan named Osama bin Laden". Gromley said, "It remained top secret except to select members of the US intelligence community. At the time, there were media reports about the discovery of two bombs, one at Manila airport and another at the venue for the leaders' meeting".^[76]

The White House FBI files controversy of June 1996 arose concerning improper access by the White House to FBI security-clearance documents. Craig Livingstone, head of the White House Office of Personnel Security, improperly requested, and received from the FBI, background report files without asking permission of the subject individuals; many of these were employees of former Republican administrations.^[77] In March 2000, Independent Counsel Robert Ray determined that there was no credible evidence of any crime. Ray's report further stated, "there was no substantial and credible evidence that any senior White House official was involved" in seeking the files.^[78]

On September 21, 1996, barely three years after the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" imbroglio, and further straining relations with the LGBT community, Clinton signed into law the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defines marriage as the legal union of one man and one woman.^[79] Paul Yandura, speaking for the White House gay and lesbian liaison office, said that Clinton's signing of DOMA "was a political decision that they made at the time of a re-election." Administration spokesman Richard Socarides said, "... the alternatives we knew were going to be far worse, and it was time to move on and get the president re-elected."^[80] Clinton himself stated that DOMA was something "which the Republicans put on the ballot to try to get the base vote for President Bush up, I think it’s obvious that something had to be done to try to keep the Republican Congress from presenting that."^[81] Others were more critical. Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) called these claims "historic revisionism”.^[80] In a July 2, 2011 editorial the New York Times opined, "The Defense of Marriage Act was enacted in 1996 as an election-year wedge issue, signed by President Bill Clinton in one of his worst policy moments."^[82]

As part of a 1996 initiative to curb illegal immigration, Clinton signed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) on September 30, 1996. Appointed by Clinton,^[83] the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform recommended reducing legal immigration from about 800,000 people a year to about 550,000.^[84][85]

The 1996 United States campaign finance controversy was an alleged effort by the People's Republic of China (PRC) to influence the domestic policies of the United States, before and during the Clinton administration, and involved the fundraising practices of the administration itself. The Chinese government denied all accusations.^[86]

Second term, 1997–2001[link]

President Bill Clinton (center), first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton (right) and their daughter Chelsea Clinton (left) wave to watchers at a parade down Pennsylvania Avenue on Inauguration Day, January 20, 1997.

In the 1996 presidential election, Clinton was re-elected, receiving 49.2% of the popular vote over Republican Bob Dole (40.7% of the popular vote) and Reform candidate Ross Perot (8.4% of the popular vote), becoming the first Democratic incumbent since Lyndon Johnson to be elected to a second term and the first Democrat since Franklin Roosevelt to be elected President more than once.^[87] The Republicans lost a few seats in the House and gained a few in the Senate, but retained control of both houses of the 105th United States Congress. Clinton received 379, or over 70% of the Electoral College votes, with Dole receiving 159 electoral votes.

Al Gore and Newt Gingrich applaud as US president Clinton waves during the State of the Union address in 1997.

In the January 1997 State of the Union address, Clinton proposed a new initiative to provide coverage to up to five million children. Senators Ted Kennedy – a Democrat – and Orrin Hatch – a Republican – teamed up with Hillary Rodham Clinton and her staff in 1997, and succeeded in passing legislation forming the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), the largest (successful) health care reform in the years of the Clinton Presidency. That year, Hillary Clinton shepherded through Congress the Adoption and Safe Families Act and two years later she succeeded in helping pass the Foster Care Independence Act.

Impeachment[link]

In a lame-duck session of Congress after the 1998 elections, the House voted to impeach Clinton, based on the results of the Lewinsky scandal.^[27] This made Clinton only the second U.S. president to be impeached (the first being Andrew Johnson). Impeachment proceedings were based on allegations that Clinton had lied about his relationship with 22-year-old White House intern Monica Lewinsky in a sworn deposition in the Paula Jones lawsuit.^[88] After the Starr Report was submitted to the House providing what it termed "substantial and credible information that President Clinton Committed Acts that May Constitute Grounds for an Impeachment",^[89] the House began impeachment hearings against Clinton before the mid-term elections. To hold impeachment proceedings, the Republican leadership called a lame-duck session in December 1998.

The impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton in 1999, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist presiding

While the House Judiciary Committee hearings ended in a straight party-line vote, there was lively debate on the House floor. The two charges passed in the House (largely with Republican support, but with a handful of Democratic votes as well) were for perjury and obstruction of justice. The perjury charge arose from Clinton's testimony about his relationship to Lewinsky during a sexual harassment lawsuit^[90] brought by former Arkansas state employee Paula Jones. The obstruction charge was based on his actions during the subsequent investigation of that testimony.

The Senate later voted to acquit Clinton on both charges.^[91] The Senate refused to meet to hold an impeachment trial before the end of the old term, so the trial was held over until the next Congress. Clinton was represented by Washington law firm Williams & Connolly.^[92] The Senate finished a twenty-one-day trial on February 12, 1999, with the vote (55 Not Guilty/45 Guilty) on both counts falling short of the Constitutional two-thirds majority requirement to convict and remove an officeholder. The final vote was generally along party lines, with no Democrats voting guilty, and only a handful of Republicans voting not guilty.^[91]

Clinton controversially issued 141 pardons and 36 commutations on his last day in office on January 20, 2001.^[27][93] Most of the controversy surrounded Marc Rich and allegations that Hillary Clinton's brother, Hugh Rodham, accepted payments in return for influencing the president's decision-making regarding the pardons.^[94] Some of Clinton's pardons remain a point of controversy.^[95]

Military and foreign events[link]

President Clinton speaks with Col. Paul Fletcher, USAF, before boarding Air Force One, November 4, 1999.

Many military events occurred during Clinton's presidency. The Battle of Mogadishu also occurred in Somalia in 1993. During the operation, two U.S. helicopters were shot down by rocket-propelled grenade attacks to their tail rotors, trapping soldiers behind enemy lines. This resulted in an urban battle that killed 18 American soldiers, wounded 73 others, and one was taken prisoner. There were many more Somali casualties. Some of the American bodies were dragged through the streets – a spectacle broadcast on television news programs. In response, U.S. forces were withdrawn from Somalia and later conflicts were approached with fewer soldiers on the ground.

In 1995, U.S. and NATO aircraft attacked Bosnian Serb targets to halt attacks on U.N. safe zones and to pressure them into a peace accord. Clinton deployed U.S. peacekeepers to Bosnia in late 1995, to uphold the subsequent Dayton Agreement.

GEN John P. Jumper, U.S. Air Forces in Europe commander, escorts President William Jefferson Clinton upon his arrival to Ramstein Air Base, Germany, May 5, 1999. The president visited several European air bases to thank the troops (not shown) for their support of NATO Operations Allied Force and Shining Hope，1999.

Capturing Osama bin Laden had been an objective of the United States government from the presidency of Bill Clinton until bin Laden's death in 2011.^[96] It has been asserted by Mansoor Ijaz that in 1996 while the Clinton Administration had begun pursuit of the policy, the Sudanese government allegedly offered to arrest and extradite Bin Laden as well as to provide the United States detailed intelligence information about growing militant organizations in the region, including Hezbollah and Hamas,^[97] and that U.S. authorities allegedly rejected each offer, despite knowing of bin Laden's involvement in bombings on American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.^[97] However, the 9/11 Commission found that although "former Sudanese officials claim that Sudan offered to expel Bin Laden to the United States", "we have not found any reliable evidence to support the Sudanese claim."^[98] In 1998, two years after the warning, the Clinton administration ordered several military missions to capture or kill bin Laden that failed.^[99]

In response to the 1998 al-Qaeda bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa that killed a dozen Americans and hundreds of Africans, Clinton ordered cruise missile strikes on terrorist targets in Afghanistan and Sudan. First was a Sudanese Pharmaceutical company suspected of assisting Osama Bin Laden in making chemical weapons. The second was Bin Laden's terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.^[100] Clinton was subsequently criticized when it turned out that a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan (originally alleged to be a chemical warfare plant) had been destroyed.

President Clinton greets Air Force personnel at Spangdahlem Air Base, May 5, 1999.

To stop the ethnic cleansing and genocide^[101][102] of Albanians by nationalist Serbians in the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's province of Kosovo, Clinton authorized the use of American troops in a NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999, named Operation Allied Force. General Wesley Clark was Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and oversaw the mission. With United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244, the bombing campaign ended on June 10, 1999. The resolution placed Kosovo under UN administration and authorized a peacekeeping force.^[103] NATO announced that its forces had suffered zero combat deaths,^[104] and two deaths from an Apache helicopter crash.^[105] Opinions in the popular press criticized pre-war genocide statements by the Clinton administration as greatly exaggerated.^[106][107] A U.N. Court ruled genocide did not take place, but recognized, "a systematic campaign of terror, including murders, rapes, arsons and severe maltreatments".^[108] The term "ethnic cleansing" was used as an alternative to "genocide" to denote not just ethnically motivated murder but also displacement, though critics charge there is no difference.^[109] Slobodan Milošević, the President of Yugoslavia at the time, was eventually charged with the "murders of about 600 individually identified ethnic Albanians" and "crimes against humanity."^[110]

In Clinton's 1998 State of the Union Address, he warned Congress of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's possible pursuit of nuclear weapons:

Together we must also confront the new hazards of chemical and biological weapons, and the outlaw states, terrorists and organized criminals seeking to acquire them. Saddam Hussein has spent the better part of this decade, and much of his nation's wealth, not on providing for the Iraqi people, but on developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. The United Nations weapons inspectors have done a truly remarkable job, finding and destroying more of Iraq's arsenal than was destroyed during the entire gulf war. Now, Saddam Hussein wants to stop them from completing their mission. I know I speak for everyone in this chamber, Republicans and Democrats, when I say to Saddam Hussein, "You cannot defy the will of the world", and when I say to him, "You have used weapons of mass destruction before; we are determined to deny you the capacity to use them again.^[111]

Bill Clinton and Jiang Zemin holding a joint press conference at the White House, October 29, 1997

To weaken Saddam Hussein's grip of power, Clinton signed H.R. 4655 into law on October 31, 1998, which instituted a policy of "regime change" against Iraq, though it explicitly stated it did not provide for direct intervention on the part of American military forces.^[112] The administration then launched a four-day bombing campaign named Operation Desert Fox, lasting from December 16 to December 19, 1998. For the last two years of Clinton's presidency, U.S. aircraft routinely attacked hostile Iraqi anti-air installations inside the Iraqi no-fly zones.

Clinton's November 2000 visit to Vietnam was the first by a U.S. President since the end of the Vietnam War.^[113] Clinton remained popular with the public throughout his two terms as President, ending his presidential career with a 65% approval rating, the highest end-of-term approval rating of any President since Dwight D. Eisenhower.^[114] Further, the Clinton administration signed over 270 trade liberalization pacts with other countries during its tenure.^[115] On October 10, 2000, Clinton signed into law the U.S.–China Relations Act of 2000, which granted permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) trade status to People's Republic of China.^[116] The president asserted that free trade would gradually open China to democratic reform.^[117] Clinton also oversaw a boom of the U.S. economy. Under Clinton, the United States had a projected federal budget surplus for the first time since 1969.^[118]