MAY 15

Madeleine Albright immigrated to the United States in 1948 when there was a communist coup in her home country of Czechoslovakia. She became an American citizen in 1957, and graduated from Wellesley College (just down the road from us!) in 1959. In 1976, she earned a Ph. D. in Public Law from Columbia University. After moving to Washington, DC with her husband Joseph, she started working for Senator Edmund Muskie (ME), and then worked for President Jimmy Carter.

Albright became a professor at Georgetown University in 1982. In 1993, newly elected President Bill Clinton nominated Albright to become the Ambassador to the United Nations. In 1996, President Clinton nominated Albright to be Secretary of State, and she was unanimously approved by Congress. This made Albright the first woman to ever serve in the role.

Albright published seven book, her most recent was released in 2020. In 2009, she published Read My Pins, a book about the brooches she wore while conducting international diplomacy as Secretary of State.

Fun connection: Albright's father Joseph Korbel was a professor at the University of Denver, and taught our second female Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. Rice and Albright are good friends, and spoke about Korbel in an NPR segment in 2006.

Madeline Albright passed away on March 23, 2022, at the age of 84.

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