Margaret Brennan

Margaret Brennan is a general assignment correspondent for CBS News based in Washington, D.C., covering the U.S. State Department.

Early life and education

Brennan was born in Stamford, Connecticut to Edward and Jane Brennan. She graduated from the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Greenwich, Connecticut in 1998. She graduated with highest distinction from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville in 2002 with a B.A. in Foreign Affairs and Middle East Studies with a minor in Arabic language. She was named an Emmerich-Wright scholar for an outstanding thesis. Brennan studied Arabic abroad, at Yarmouk University in Irbid, Jordan, on a Fulbright-Hays Grant.

Career

Previously, she covered the retail industry for CNBC and contributed to NBC's Today and NBC Nightly News, and worked with the late Louis Rukeyser. Most recently, Brennan was an anchor at Bloomberg TV.

Additionally, Brennan has interviewed the International Monetary Fund's Christine Lagarde, investor George Soros, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, as well as Ireland's Prime Minister and Dubai's ruler following their respective debt crises. She also helped lead anchor coverage of Bloomberg's 2012 Republican presidential candidate debate.

Margaret

Margaret is a female first name, derived via French (Marguerite) and Latin (Margarita) from Greek Margarites, derived from the noun margaron meaning 'pearl'. The Greek is probably related to the Sanskrit मञ्जरी mañjarī meaning 'pearl' or 'cluster of blossoms.'

Margaret has been an English name since the 11th century, and remained popular throughout the Middle Ages. It became less popular between the 16th century and 18th century, but became more common again after this period, becoming the second most popular name in the United States in 1903. Since this time, it has become less common, but was still the ninth most common name for women of all ages in the United States as of the 1990 census.

Margaret has a large number of diminutive forms in many different languages.

Variant forms

Alternate forms of Margaret, including short forms and pet names, include:

White House

The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the President of the United States, located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C. It has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800.

The house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia Creek sandstone in the Neoclassical style. When Thomas Jefferson moved into the house in 1801, he (with architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe) expanded the building outward, creating two colonnades that were meant to conceal stables and storage. However, in 1814, during the War of 1812, the mansion was set ablaze by the British Army in the Burning of Washington, destroying the interior and charring much of the exterior. Reconstruction began almost immediately, and President James Monroe moved into the partially reconstructed Executive Residence in October 1817. Construction continued with the addition of the South Portico in 1824 and the North in 1829.