Madeleine Albright
First US Secretary of State dies
Madeleine Albright was US Secretary of State from 1997 to 2001
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Madeleine Albright is dead. According to her family, the first US Secretary of State died of cancer at the age of 84.
Madeleine Albright, who became the first woman Secretary of State in US history, is dead. She died this Wednesday (March 23) at the age of 84. Via the politician’s official Twitter account her family released a joint statement. It said: “It is with great sorrow that we announce that Dr. Madeleine K. Albright, the 64th Secretary of State and the first woman to hold that position, passed away on this day.”
Cancer is mentioned as the cause of death in the post. “She was surrounded by her family and friends. We lost a loving mother, grandmother, aunt and friend.”
From refugee to foreign minister
Albright was born in Prague, Czech Republic in 1937. Shortly after the Wehrmacht invaded in 1939, her Jewish family fled to the USA. At the end of the 1950s she studied political science there and did her doctorate. At the beginning of his second term as US President, she was sworn in by Bill Clinton (75) in 1997 as the first US Secretary of State.