President Joe Biden’s Life in Photos

Joe was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in 1942. He’s pictured here at age 9 behind his siblings.

In 1965, Biden graduated from the University of Delaware with a Bachelor of Arts degree. He double majored in history and political science. While on campus, Biden served in student government and played on the freshman football team.

A young Joe Biden at age 25.

In 1968, Biden graduated from the Syracuse University College of Law, earning his Juris Doctor degree.

Joe married Neilia Hunter in 1966. Here, he’s pictured on this 30th birthday with Neilia and their second child, Hunter.

During his time in the Senate, Biden commuted from Wilmington to Washington every day.

In 1976, Biden became the first U.S. senator to endorse Jimmy Carter for president.

Biden was re-elected to the Senate six times, and currently holds the record as Delaware’s longest-serving senator.

Biden later withdrew his candidacy for president that same year. Soon, the senator would confront a major health emergency.

In 1988, Biden had surgery to treat an aneurysm and was also hospitalized with a pulmonary embolism, keeping him out of the Senate for seven months. Here, he’s seen on the train platform in Wilmington, Delaware, returning to work.

Biden’s family is Catholic and of Irish descent, and he is proud to be an Irish American. Here, he’s wearing a green tie in honor of St. Patrick's Day.

Biden, a longtime member of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, chaired it from 1987 to 1995, and presided over the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas.

In 1994, Biden helped pass the Violence Against Women Act, described by the Biden White House as a “landmark legislation that strengthens penalties for violence against women, creates unprecedented resources for survivors of assault, and changes the national dialogue on domestic and sexual assault.”

During his tenure in the Senate, Biden was also a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chairing it from 2001 to 2003 and again from 2007 to 2009.

Biden’s aviator sunglasses, which he has worn since he was a lifeguard in college, are part of his signature style.

Biden, then the ranking Democrat of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, voted to authorize the war in Iraq, but years later called his vote a mistake.

Biden decided to run for president again in January 2007, before ultimately dropping out of the race a year later following the Iowa caucus.

Seven months later, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois selected Biden as his running mate. During their first joint appearance, Obama said, “He is still that scrappy kid from Scranton who beat the odds, the dedicated family man and committed Catholic who knows every conductor on that Amtrak train to Wilmington.”