This Day, That Year – January 23

This day in history we feature Madeleine Albright. The first woman to serve as the Secretary of United States on this day in 1997.

Trivia – Madeleine Albright

Madeleine Albright was an American diplomat and political scientist who served as the 64th United States secretary of state from 1997 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party, Albright was the first woman to hold that post. Born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, Albright immigrated to the United States after the 1948 communist coup d’état when she was eleven years old. Her father, diplomat Josef Korbel, settled the family in Denver, Colorado, and she became a U.S. citizen in 1957. Albright graduated from Wellesley College in 1959 and earned a PhD from Columbia University in 1975, writing her thesis on the Prague Spring. She worked as an aide to Senator Edmund Muskie from 1976 to 1978, before serving as a staff member on the National Security Council under Zbigniew Brzezinski. She served in that position until 1981, when President Jimmy Carter left office.

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After leaving the National Security Council, Albright joined the academic faculty of Georgetown University in 1982 and advised Democratic candidates regarding foreign policy. Following the 1992 presidential election, Albright helped assemble President Bill Clinton’s National Security Council. She was appointed United States ambassador to the United Nations from 1993 to 1997, a position she held until elevation as secretary of state. Secretary Albright served in that capacity until President Clinton left office in 2001. Albright served as chair of the Albright Stonebridge Group, a consulting firm, and was the Michael and Virginia Mortara Endowed Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in May 2012. Albright served on the board of the Council on Foreign Relations. Albright was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001. Also that year, Albright founded the Albright Group, an international strategy consulting firm based in Washington, D.C. that later become the Albright Stonebridge Group. Affiliated with the firm is Albright Capital Management, which was founded in 2005 to engage in private fund management related to emerging markets. Albright endorsed and supported Hillary Clinton in her 2008 presidential campaign. Albright was a close friend of Clinton and served as an informal advisor on foreign policy matters. On December 1, 2008, President-elect Barack Obama nominated then-Senator Clinton for Albright’s former post of Secretary of State. Bob Schieffer and Madeleine Albright at the LBJ Presidential Library in 2017. In September 2009, Albright opened an exhibition of her personal jewelry collection at the Museum of Art and Design in New York City, which ran until January 2010. In 2009, Albright also published the book Read My Pins: Stories from a Diplomat’s Jewel Box about her pins. In August 2012, when speaking at an Obama campaign event in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, Albright was asked the question “How long will you blame that previous administration for all of your problems?”, to which she replied “Forever”. In October 2012, Albright appeared in a video on the official Twitter feed for the Democratic Party, responding to then-GOP candidate Mitt Romney’s assertion that Russia was the “number-one geopolitical foe” of the United States. According to Albright, Romney’s statement was proof that he had “little understanding of what was actually going on in the 21st Century [and] he is not up to date and that is a very dangerous aspect”. Albright described Donald Trump as “the most un-American, anti-democratic leader” in U.S. history. She also criticized the Trump administration for its delay in filling some diplomatic posts as a sign of “disdain for diplomacy”. After 2016, Albright served as chair of Albright Stonebridge Group, a consulting firm, and chair of the advisory council for The Hague Institute for Global Justice, which was founded in 2011 in The Hague. She also served as an Honorary Chair for the World Justice Project (WJP). The WJP works to lead a global, multidisciplinary effort to strengthen the rule of law for the development of communities of opportunity and equity. Albright was a co-investor with Jacob Rothschild, 4th Baron Rothschild, and George Soros in a $350 million investment vehicle called Helios Towers Africa, which intends to buy or build thousands of mobile phone towers in Africa.

Source – Wikipedia