President Clinton - U.S. National Archives Public Domain photograph

William Jefferson 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. Prior to the Presidency, he was the 40th Governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and the state's 42nd Governor from 1983 to 1992. Before that, he served as Arkansas Attorney General from 1977 to 1979. Clinton was born on August 19, 1946, at Julia Chester Hospital in Hope, Arkansas; he was named William Jefferson Blythe III. He was the son of William Jefferson Blythe Jr. (1918–1946), a traveling salesman who had died in an automobile accident three months before his birth, and Virginia Dell Cassidy.