Joseph Biden

A U.S. senator from Delaware since 1973, Joseph Biden will become vice president of the United States in 2009. He was born in Pennsylvania and moved with his family to Delaware at age 10. He earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Delaware in 1965, then a law degree from Syracuse University in 1968. A political prodigy, he was only 29 when elected to the Senate in 1972. He has been elected five times since: in 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996, and 2002. A member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee since 1975, Biden has carved out a reputation as a brainy and talkative expert in international relations. Often touted as a potential presidential candidate, he ran formally for the job in the elections of 1988 and 2008. Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination in 2008 and then chose Biden as his running mate. They defeated Republican nominees John McCain and Sarah Palin in the general election, and will take office on 20 January 2009.

Extra credit: Biden married the former Neilia Hunter in 1966. They had three children: Joseph R. Biden III (called "Beau," b. 1969), Hunter (b. 1970), and Naomi (b. 1971). Neilia and Naomi were killed in a car crash in 1972, just a month after Biden was elected to the Senate. He remarried in 1977, to schoolteacher Jill Jacobs (now Jill Biden). Their daughter Ashley was born in 1981... Beau Biden was elected attorney general of Delaware in 2006... Joe Biden's 1988 run for president was cut short in 1987 after he used portions of a speech from British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock in a campaign speech, without attributing Kinnock. Biden said it was an honest mistake, while critics called it plagiarism... Biden published a memoir, Promises to Keep, in 2007.