President Joe Biden, Bill and Hillary Clinton, to speak at Madeleine Albright's funeral Wednesday.
Albright's admirers remember her as a champion of democracy, human rights and peace whose journey from war-torn Europe embodied the American story.
RELATED: Madeleine Albright dies at 84
Albright, who first arrived to the U.S. as a young girl from war-torn Czechoslovakia, rose to become one of the highest officials in government. She served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997 and later as secretary of state under Clinton from 1997 to 2001.
Albright heavily influenced NATO's actions in her role. She pushed for the alliance's eastward expansion into the former Soviet bloc and helped lead the NATO bombing campaign in 1999 to halt ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.
Born Madeleine Korbel in Prague in 1937, Albright fled to England with her family in 1939 after Nazi Germany invaded Czechoslovakia. Her family eventually moved back to the country, but left for the U.S. in 1948 after the communist takeover of Czechoslovakia. She graduated from Wellesley College and earned a master's degree from Columbia University.
Albright married Joseph Albright of the Medill newspaper-publishing family in 1959. The couple had three daughters and divorced in 1982.
Before becoming the 64th secretary of state, Albright worked on a presidential campaign, for former President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser and for various nonprofits during the Reagan and Bush years. She also worked as a professor of international affairs at Georgetown University from 1982 to 1993
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