RAPID CITY, S.D. (KOTA) –
As we continue to celebrate America’s 250th birthday, we are revealing some things you may not know about our presidents.
Tonight, we feature a man who was one of the only two father-son pairs to serve as presidents. He worked in the Texas oil industry and had an ownership stake in a Major League Baseball team.
George Walker Bush was born on July 6, 1946, in New Haven, Connecticut, the oldest of six children.
He was raised in Texas and graduated from Yale and Harvard Business School.
Bush married Laura Welch in 1946, and the couple had twin daughters in 1981.
After graduating from Harvard in 1975, Bush worked in the Texas oil industry and started his own exploration company.
He moved to Washington, DC, and worked on his father, George HW Bush’s successful 1988 presidential campaign. One year later, he became a part-owner of the Texas Rangers.
In 1994, he was elected Governor of Texas, serving two terms in Austin.
In the 2000 presidential election, he defeated Al Gore, becoming only the fourth president in US history at the time to win the electoral vote, but lost the popular vote.
Eight months after taking office, America was attacked on September 11th, 2001, by Islamic extremists. One plane crashed into the Pentagon, another crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and two planes were flown into the World Trade Center towers in New York City. Nearly three thousand people were killed in the attacks.
One month later, the US invaded Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban and to locate Osama Bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda, responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
President Bush signed the “Patriot Act” into law to create the Department of Homeland Security in 2002.
In 2003, the US invaded Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein, whose regime was accused of supporting terrorists and having weapons of mass destruction. No WMD’S were ever found.
Bush would win the election in 2004, but his approval ratings would drop in his second term.
His delayed response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which ravaged the Gulf Coast, and, in 2008, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, fueled Americans’ dissatisfaction with Bush.
He put two judges on the US Supreme Court. John Roberts and Samuel Alito.
Today, he lives in Dallas with his wife Laura.
The life-size statue of George W. Bush stands on the corner of St. Joseph Street and 5th Street in downtown Rapid City.
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