Early life and education

George Walker Bush was born on July 6, 1946, in New Haven, Connecticut. He was the eldest of six children of George Herbert Walker Bush and Barbara Pierce Bush. The younger Bush grew up largely in Midland and Houston, Texas.

In his teenage years Bush attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. In 1968 he graduated from Yale University with a degree in history. He then spent several years as a helicopter pilot in the Texas Air National Guard. From 1973 to 1975 he attended Harvard University, earning a master's degree in business.

Business and politics

After leaving Harvard Bush returned to his hometown of Midland and started an oil business. In 1977 he married Laura Welch, a librarian. Four years later they had twin daughters, Barbara and Jenna.

Bush made his first attempt to enter politics in 1978. He ran as a Republican for an empty seat in the United States House of Representatives. He was narrowly defeated by his Democratic opponent.

After this loss Bush returned to the oil industry in Midland. A sharp drop in oil prices in the 1980s hurt his company. In 1986 Bush was forced to sell the failing business. Soon afterward he began to work for his father's presidential campaign as an adviser and speech writer.

Baseball executive and governor of Texas

After his father was elected president in 1988, Bush moved to Dallas, Texas. A lifelong baseball fan, he put together a group of investors to buy the Texas Rangers baseball team. Bush served as managing partner for the team. This position made him a prominent figure throughout Texas.

After five years with the Rangers Bush decided to try politics again. In 1994 he ran for governor of Texas against Ann Richards, a popular Democrat who was seeking reelection. Bush won the election with 53 percent of the vote. As governor Bush reformed the Texas welfare system and took a tough stance against crime. He also cut taxes and increased spending for schools. Bush was reelected in 1998 with a record 69 percent of the vote.

The 2000 election

In 1999 Bush announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination. He described his political philosophy as “compassionate conservatism.” By this he meant to combine traditional Republican economic and social policies with concern for the underprivileged. Bush won the nomination and chose Richard Cheney as his vice-presidential running mate. His chief opponent was the Democrat Al Gore, who had served two terms as vice president under President Bill Clinton.

The presidential election of 2000 was a historic one. Bush received about 500,000 fewer popular votes than Gore. In the electoral college, however, the contest was too close for either candidate to claim victory on election day. Eventually the outcome of the election came to hinge on the state of Florida. Both candidates needed its 25 electoral votes to win. Bush held the lead in Florida, but the vote was remarkably tight. For several weeks the election remained unresolved as votes were recounted. At the same time, lawyers for both candidates argued over the results in court.

Eventually the United States Supreme Court stopped the recounts. This controversial decision made Bush the winner in Florida. With this victory, Bush narrowly won the electoral vote over Gore by 271 to 266. Bush's electoral vote total was only one more than the minimum number required to win. He took office as president on January 20, 2001.

The presidency

For much of his presidency Bush had the advantage of working with a Congress that had a Republican majority in both houses. Taking advantage of his party's majority, in June 2001 Bush signed into law a major tax cut. The bill passed the Congress despite fierce opposition from Democrats.

In September 2001 Bush faced his greatest challenge to date. In the worst act of terrorism in U.S. history, commercial airplanes were hijacked and flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Thousands of people were killed in the attacks, the twin towers were destroyed, and the Pentagon was badly damaged. Bush responded by calling for a global war on terrorism. He identified Osama bin Laden, the leader of a group known as al-Qaeda, as the main suspect in the attacks. Bush ordered air attacks against the government of Afghanistan, which he accused of helping bin Laden. By the end of the year the government and bin Laden's forces had been defeated or forced into hiding. (See also terrorism.)

In 2002 Bush turned his attention to Iraq and a dispute that had been ongoing since the end of the Persian Gulf War in 1991. As part of the peace treaty Iraq had been ordered to destroy some of its weapons. The United Nations sent inspectors to make sure that this was done, but Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein, soon stopped cooperating with the inspectors. In 2002 Bush accused Saddam of having ties to al-Qaeda and of continuing to possess the banned weapons. The inspectors returned to Iraq, but Bush and others accused Saddam of not cooperating fully. In March 2003, U.S.-led troops invaded Iraq in an attempt to oust Saddam. Within a few months they had succeeded in overthrowing the government, and in December they captured Saddam, who had gone into hiding. (See also Iraq.)

The U.S.-led troops remained in Iraq and continued to come under attack as that country began the process of establishing a new government. The war became one of the major issues in Bush's campaign for reelection in 2004. Although many people in the United States opposed the war and Bush's economic policies, others praised him for his efforts to combat terrorism and his stand on certain social issues. In a close election, voters reelected Bush over his Democratic opponent, Massachusetts senator John Kerry, in November 2004.