Friday, May 18, 2007
Madeleine Korbel Albright (born Marie Jana Korbelová, IPA on May 15, 1937) was the first woman to become United States Secretary of State. She was nominated by President Bill Clinton on December 5, 1996 and was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate.
Albright was born Marie Jana Korbelová in Prague, Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic), and raised in the Roman Catholic Church by her parents, who had converted to Catholicism from Judaism in order to escape persecution. In 1939 the Korbel family fled to London after Bohemia and Moravia were annexed by Germany. That may have saved her life, as many of her Jewish relatives in Czechoslovakia were killed in the Holocaust, including three of her grandparents. She and her parents fled again when the Communists assumed power over Czechoslovakia, moving to the United States of America in 1948. Once settled there, Josef became the founding dean of the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver. Korbel later taught future Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Intlawgrrls (here) noted Albright's birthday on May 15.