Clinton comes with four decades of public life (Profile)

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, a former US Secretary of State, enjoys near universal name recognition after her almost four-decade-long public life.

Now 68, Hillary Clinton's debut as a political spouse started in 1979 when her husband Bill Clinton became the governor of Arkansas.

In 1992, when Bill Clinton campaigned for the presidency, he once quipped that he was offering voters two presidents "for the price of one", Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday.

As the First Lady of the US, Hillary Clinton raised her profile in 1993 by aggressively campaigning for universal healthcare for all Americans. The campaign ended up being a fiasco.

Between the mid-1990s and the end of his second term in office, Bill Clinton became deeply involved in various scandals, including an investigation into a failed real estate project in which the Clintons had invested and his affair with a White House intern that led to impeachment proceedings.

In 2000, Hillary Clinton successfully ran for senator in New York State and easily won re-election in 2006.

She launched her first White House run in 2008 and was immediately viewed by many as the front-runner in the Democratic field.

However, she was defeated by then first-term Senator Barack Obama from Illinois in the nomination race, who later won the general election and became the first US African-American president.

Hillary Clinton was confirmed by the US Senate as Secretary of State in January 2009.

She entered the 2016 presidential race with strong momentum in April 2015.

But since then, her candidacy has been dogged by controversy around her exclusive use of a private email account and server while helming the US State Department.

On Monday, Hillary Clinton reached the number of delegates required to notch the Democratic nomination, according to the Associated Press' latest delegate count.

The tally included the overwhelming support by unpledged delegates or superdelegates for her. Superdelegates are party leaders who are free to change their allegiance before the national convention in July.

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