30 Fascinating Facts About Joe Biden You Might Have Missed Before

Joe Biden, the 46th and current president of the United States, is actually the first president from the Silent Generation. He served as the 47th vice president from 2009 to 2017 under Barack Obama. He is the second Catholic president after John F. Kennedy, and the first president whose home state is Delaware. In his first two days as president, he signed 17 executive orders, more than most recent presidents did in their first 100 days. In his first two weeks in office, he signed more executive orders than any other president since Franklin D. Roosevelt had in their first month in office. Here are some really interesting facts about him that you probably didn’t know before:

"Joe Biden" by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

1.  Biden was elected the 46th president of the United States in November 2020, when he defeated the incumbent, Donald Trump, becoming the first candidate to defeat a sitting president since Bill Clinton defeated George H. W. Bush in 1992.
2.  In January 1973, secretary of the Senate Francis R. Valeo swore Biden in at the Delaware Division of the Wilmington Medical Center, making him the sixth-youngest senator in US history, at the age of 30.
3.  Elected to the Senate in 1972, he was reelected in 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008, regularly receiving about 60% of the vote. He was the 18th-longest-serving senator in U.S. history as of 2020.
4.  Although his 2008 presidential campaign failed, he got to know Obama personally, who appreciated his appeal to the working class voters, and when he withdrew from the presidential race, Obama privately told him that he was interested in finding an important place for Biden in his administration.
5.  Following this, they met in secret to discuss the possibility, and on August 22, 2008, it was announced that Biden would be Obama’s running mate. He was officially nominated for vice president on August 27, by voice vote at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.
6.  Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., was born on November 20, 1942 to Joseph Robinette Biden Sr., and Catherine Eugenia “Jean” Biden, at St. Mary’s Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
7.  He is the eldest of the four siblings in the Catholic family. His sister is Valerie Biden Owens, who was nominated as advisor to the United Nations 71st General Assembly, by Barack Obama and his two brothers are Francis Biden and James Biden.
8.  His mother was of Irish ancestry, while his father was of English, French and Irish ancestry. His family had been wealthy enough, but around the time, he was born, his family suffered some financial setbacks.
9.  In 1953, when Biden was ten years old, the family lived in an apartment in Claymont, Delaware, before moving to a house in nearby Mayfield. His father became a successful used-car salesman, maintaining the family in a middle-class lifestyle.
10.  He attended Archmere Academy in Claymont, where he played baseball and was a standout halfback and wide receiver on the high school football team. He was class president in his junior and senior years.

"Joe Biden" by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

11.  At the University of Delaware in Newark, Biden briefly played freshman football and as an unexceptional student, earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1965 with a double major in history and political science and a minor in English.
12.  He has a stutter, which has improved since his early twenties. He claimed that it had greatly reduced by reciting poetry before a mirror.
13.  In 1968, he earned a Juris Doctor from Syracuse University College of Law, ranked 76th in his class of 85, after failing a course due to an acknowledged "mistake." He plagiarized a law review article for a paper in his first year at law school.
14.  In 1970, Biden ran for the 4th district seat on the New Castle County Council on a liberal platform that included support for public housing in the suburbs.
15.  He won the general election by defeating Republican Lawrence T. Messick, and took office on January 5, 1971, and served until January 1, 1973.
16.  He defeated Republican incumbent J. Caleb Boggs to become the junior U.S. senator from Delaware, in 1972, being the only Democrat willing to challenge Boggs.
17.  In February 1988, after several episodes of increasingly severe neck pain, he was taken by ambulance to Walter Reed Army Medical Center for surgery to correct a leaking intracranial berry aneurysm.
18.  He formally declared his candidacy for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination on June 9, 1987, and would have become the second-youngest person elected president, after John F. Kennedy, had he not withdrawn his candidacy on September 23, 1987.
19.  He once again declared his candidacy in the 2008 elections in January 2007, and had his campaign focused on the Iraq War. However, he had difficulty raising funds, and failed to gain traction against candidacies of Obama and Hillary Clinton.
20.  He married Neilia Hunter, a student at Syracuse University, on August 27, 1966, after overcoming her parents' reluctance for her to wed a Roman Catholic.

"Joe Biden" by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

21.  They had three children – Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III, Robert Hunter Biden, and Naomi Christina "Amy" Biden. Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III passed away in 2015.
22.  On December 18, 1972, his wife Neilia and one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in an automobile accident while Christmas shopping in Hockessin, Delaware.
23.  His sons Beau and Hunter survived the accident, and were admitted to hospital with a broken leg and a minor skull fracture respectively. He considered resigning to care for them, but Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield persuaded him not to. The accident had filled him with anger and religious doubt.
24.  He met teacher Jill Tracy Jacobs, in a blind date in 1975, and got married at the United Nations Chapel in New York on June 17, 1977. He credits Jacobs with the renewal of his interest in politics and life.
25.  The couple have a daughter Ashley Biden, a social worker, philanthropist and activist, who is married to physician Howard Krein.
26.  Beau Biden became an Army Judge Advocate in Iraq and later Delaware Attorney General before dying of brain cancer in 2015. Hunter Biden is a Washington lobbyist and investment adviser.
27.  Throughout his 36 years in the Senate, he traveled by train between his Delaware home and D.C., - 74 minutes each way – to be with his sons.
28.  On November 4, 2008, Obama and Biden were elected with 53% of the popular vote and 365 electoral votes to McCain–Palin's 173. He was also simultaneously running for reelection to the Senate, in which he defeated Republican Christine O'Donnell.
29.  After leaving the vice presidency, he became an honorary professor at the University of Pennsylvania, titled as the "Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice Professor."
30.  At the age of 78, he is the oldest person to have assumed the office, when he was inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States on January 20, 2021. He is the first man since George H. W. Bush to have been both vice president and president, and the second non-incumbent vice president, only after Richard Nixon in 1968, to be elected president.
31.  Joe Biden Net Worth: $8 Million