Joe Biden's 84th Birthday Countdown

Joe Biden Timeline

About Joe Biden

One of the longest-serving U.S. senators in history, representing Delaware for 36 years, Biden served two terms as vice president under Barack Obama before being elected president in 2020, serving from 2021 to 2025. At his inauguration he was at the time the oldest person ever sworn in as U.S. president.

Twenty-nine years old, with a train to catch

In 1972, a 29-year-old county councilman took on entrenched Republican senator J. Caleb Boggs and pulled off one of the great upsets in Senate history, becoming one of the youngest senators ever elected. For the next 36 years he rode Amtrak home to Wilmington nearly every night, more than 7,000 round trips, earning the nickname "Amtrak Joe." In 2011, Wilmington's train station was renamed the Joseph R. Biden Jr. Railroad Station in his honor.

Eighty-one million votes, forty-eight years in the making

In 2020 Biden received 81,283,098 votes, the most ever cast for a U.S. presidential candidate, and at 78 became the oldest person sworn in as president at the time. It capped a half-century arc: 36 years in the Senate, two terms as vice president, and a moment that left him wiping away tears, when Barack Obama surprised him in January 2017 with the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction, a rare added honor.

The moonshot with his son's name on it

After his son Beau died of brain cancer in 2015, Biden turned grief into a mission. As vice president he led the national Cancer Moonshot, which Congress named the Beau Biden Cancer Moonshot in the 21st Century Cures Act, authorizing $1.8 billion for cancer research. As president he relaunched it in 2022 with a goal of cutting the cancer death rate in half within 25 years. In 2017 he also founded the Biden Institute at his alma mater, the University of Delaware.

Quick facts

• Born November 20, 1942, in Scranton, Pennsylvania
• 46th President of the United States (2021-2025) and 47th Vice President under Barack Obama
• Elected to the U.S. Senate at 29 in 1972, one of the youngest senators in American history
• Won 81,283,098 votes in 2020, the most ever cast for a U.S. presidential candidate
• Wilmington's Amtrak station was renamed the Joseph R. Biden Jr. Railroad Station in 2011 after his 7,000-plus round trips
• Received the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction in a surprise 2017 White House ceremony

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