CIVICS FACTS 1. Joe Biden was elected a U.S. Senator when he was just 29 years old. He turned 30 before taking office. 2. Biden remained a senator from 1973 to 2009. He resigned his office after 36 years to serve as Vice President. 3. His wife, Jill Tracy Jacobs Biden, has a doctorate degree and is a teacher at a Community College. She is the first Second Lady to hold a paying job while her husband is Vice President. 4. Biden failed to win the democratic nomination for U.S. President in 1988 and again in 2008. 5. Biden is a teetotaler. A teetotaler is a person who doesn't drink alcohol.

• Joe Biden is the current Vice President of the United States. His full name is Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.
• He was sworn into office on January 20, 2009. Biden is the 47th U.S. Vice President.
• Biden was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, but his family moved to Delaware when he was 10 years old. His family is Irish.
• As a child, he had a stuttering problem, but he improved his speech by reciting poetry in front of a mirror.

• Biden graduated from the University of Delaware in 1965 with a degree in history and political science. And in 1968, he graduated from Syracuse University College of Law and became a lawyer.
• In 1974, Biden became a U.S. Senator from his home state of Delaware.
• Biden has been married twice. His first wife, Neilia Hunter, and his infant daughter died in a car accident. Their two young sons were seriously injured, but they both recovered.
• Biden married his current wife, Jill, in 1977. They had one daughter.
• Barack Obama and Joe Biden won the election in November of 2008. They took the Oath of Office on the steps of the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 2009.
• Biden is the first Roman Catholic to become Vice President of the United States.
• The Constitution says that if the president can no long serve, the vice president becomes president.
• Like Barack Obama, Joe Biden is a member of the Democratic Party.