Significant dates in the life of former U.S. President George H.W. Bush.
1924 — George H.W. Bush is born June 12 in Milton, Massachusetts, to Prescott Bush and Dorothy Walker Bush
1941 — A few weeks after the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, Bush meets Barbara Pierce at a Christmas dance.
1942 — Enlists in the U.S. Navy on the day he turns 18 years old.
1943 — Becomes the youngest commissioned pilot in the naval air service.
1945 — Marries Barbara Pierce in January while on leave. Bush is honorably discharged from the Navy in September.
1948 — Graduates from Yale and accepts a job in the oil industry and moves his family to Texas.
1952 — Co-founds Zapata Petroleum. Bush’s father, Prescott Bush, is elected to the U.S. Senate from Connecticut.
1962 — Becomes chairman of the Harris County Republican Committee. His father retires from the Senate.
1964 — Is unsuccessful in his run for seat in the U.S. Senate.
1966 — Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Becomes the first freshman in 63 years to be offered a seat on the powerful Ways and Means Committee.
1970 — Gives up his congressional seat to again run for the Senate, but is defeated by Democrat Lloyd Bentsen.
1971 — Appointed as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations by President Richard Nixon.
1974 — Appointed to be chief of the U.S. Liaison Office in China by President Gerald Ford.
1976 — Is named Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
1979 — Declares his candidacy for the presidency of the United States.
1980 — Fails to win the nomination of the Republican Party but is picked as Ronald Reagan’s vice president. Reagan-Bush beat Carter-Mondale in a landslide.
1981 — Is sworn in as the 43rd vice president.
1987 — Announces he will run for president.
1989 — Is sworn in as the 41st president of the United States. On Dec. 20, the United States invades Panama, captures dictator Manuel Noriega and brings him to the U.S. to stand trial for drug-trafficking.
1991 — The United States and its allies launch a military operation to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Operation Desert Storm begins with aerial and naval bombardment, followed by a ground assault five weeks later. A cease-fire is declared 100 hours after the start of the ground assault.
1992 — Bush announces his candidacy for re-election. In November, he is defeated by Bill Clinton.
2001 — Attends the inauguration of his son, George W. Bush, as the 43rd president of the United States. It is the first time, since John and John Quincy Adams almost 200 years earlier, that a father and son have been elected president.
2011 — Is awarded the Presidential Medal of Honor, the highest civilian honor in the United States, by President Barack Obama.
2014 — Fulfills a long-standing promise to skydive on his 90th birthday. It is the eighth time the former president has made a parachute jump, including on his 80th and 85th birthdays.
2018 — Dies Nov. 30, age 94
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