Joe Biden

Joe Biden was born to Joseph Biden Sr. and Catherine Eugenia “Jean” Finnegan in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on November 20, 1942. As a child, Joe struggled with a stutter but overcame the speech impediment by reading poetry out loud. When he was 13 years old, Joe’s family moved to Mayfield, Delaware.

Joe attended the University of Delaware, where he majored in history and political science and played defensive back on the Blue Hen football team. During spring break of his junior year, Joe met Syracuse University student Neilia Hunter.

Joe graduated from Delaware in 1965 and applied to Syracuse University Law School. One year later, Joe and Hunter got married. The couple had three children: Joseph “Beau” Biden III, Hunter Biden and Naomi Biden.

After graduating from law school in 1968, Joe moved to Wilmington, Delaware, where he began practicing at a law firm and joined the Democratic Party. In 1971, Joe was elected to the New Castle County Council and started his own law firm.

Joe ran for the United States Senate in 1972 and won becoming the fifth-youngest U.S. senator elected in the nation’s history. Later that year, Joe’s wife and three children were involved in a car accident while shopping for a Christmas tree. The incident killed Neila and Naomi and severely injured Beau and Hunter. Joe met Jill Biden in 1975 and the pair tied the knot two years later. The couple welcomed daughter Ashley Biden in 1981.

Joe was elected to the Senate six times from 1973 to 2009. He ran for president in 1987 but dropped out of the Democratic primary after he was accused of plagiarizing parts of a speech. In 1988, he underwent two surgeries after he was diagnosed with two brain aneurysms, which caused him to be absent from the Senate for seven months.

Joe ran for president again in 2007 but lost the Democratic primary to Barack Obama, who later selected Joe as his running mate. Joe served as vice president of the United States for two terms under Obama before he ran again in 2020. He later announced Kamala Harris as his vice president running mate. Joe and Harris won the presidential election in 2020, succeeding Donald Trump and Mike Pence. Joe ultimately opted against running for a second term and left office in January 2025.

News broke in May 2025 that Joe had been diagnosed with an “aggressive” form of prostate cancer, which had already spread to his bones.