133 Facts About Al Gore

Al Gore is one of only five presidential candidates in American history to lose a presidential election despite winning the popular vote.

Al Gore was a US representative from Tennessee and from 1985 to 1993 served as a US senator from that state.

Al Gore is the founder and current chair of The Climate Reality Project, the co-founder and chair of Generation Investment Management, the now-defunct Current TV network, a member of the Board of Directors of Apple Inc and a senior adviser to Google.

Al Gore is a partner in the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, heading its climate change solutions group.

Al Gore has served as a visiting professor at Middle Tennessee State University, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Fisk University and the University of California, Los Angeles.

Al Gore served on the Board of Directors of World Resources Institute.

Al Gore has received a number of awards that include the Nobel Peace Prize, a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for his book An Inconvenient Truth, a Primetime Emmy Award for Current TV, and a Webby Award.

Al Gore was the subject of the Academy Award winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth in 2006, as well as its 2017 sequel An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power.

In 2008, Al Gore won the Dan David Prize for Social Responsibility.

Al Gore was born on March 31,1948, in Washington, DC, the second of two children of Albert Al Gore Sr.

Al Gore is a descendant of Scots Irish immigrants who first settled in Virginia in the mid-17th-century and moved to Tennessee after the Revolutionary War.

Al Gore attended St Albans School, an independent college preparatory day and boarding school for boys in Washington, DC from 1956 to 1965, a prestigious feeder school for the Ivy League.

Al Gore was the captain of the football team, threw discus for the track and field team and participated in basketball, art, and government.

Al Gore graduated 25th in a class of 51, applied to one college, Harvard University, and was accepted.

Al Gore enrolled in Harvard College in 1965; he initially planned to major in English and write novels but later decided to major in government.

Al Gore was an avid reader who fell in love with scientific and mathematical theories, but he did not do well in science classes and avoided taking math.

Al Gore was in college during the era of anti Vietnam War protests.

Al Gore was against that war, but he disagreed with the tactics of the student protest movement.

Al Gore thought that it was silly and juvenile to use a private university as a venue to vent anger at the war.

Al Gore eventually decided that enlisting in the Army would be the best course between serving his country, his personal values and interests.

Al Gore has said that his other reason for enlisting was that he did not want someone with fewer options than he to go in his place.

Actor Tommy Lee Jones, a former college housemate, recalled Al Gore saying that "if he found a fancy way of not going, someone else would have to go in his place".

Al Gore was finally shipped to Vietnam on January 2,1971, after his father had lost his seat in the Senate during the 1970 Senate election, becoming one "of only about a dozen of the 1,115 Harvard graduates in the Class of '69 who went to Vietnam".

Al Gore was stationed with the 20th Engineer Brigade in Bien Hoa and was a journalist with The Castle Courier.

Al Gore received an honorable discharge from the Army in May 1971.

Al Gore later said he went there in order to explore "spiritual issues", and that "he had hoped to make sense of the social injustices that seemed to challenge his religious beliefs".

In 1971, Al Gore began to work the night shift for The Tennessean as an investigative reporter.

Al Gore's decision to become an attorney was a partial result of his time as a journalist, as he realized that, while he could expose corruption, he could not change it.

Al Gore did not complete law school, deciding abruptly, in 1976, to run for a seat in the US House of Representatives when he found out that his father's former seat in the House was about to be vacated.

Al Gore began serving in the US Congress at the age of 28 and stayed there for the next 16 years, serving in both the House and the Senate.

Al Gore spent many weekends in Tennessee, working with his constituents.

Tipper Al Gore held a job in The Tennesseans photo lab and was working on a master's degree in psychology, but she joined in her husband's campaign.

Al Gore won the 1976 Democratic primary for the district with "32 percent of the vote, three percentage points more than his nearest rival", and was opposed only by an independent candidate in the election, recording 94 percent of the overall vote.

Al Gore went on to win the next three elections, in 1978,1980 and 1982, where "he was unopposed twice and won 79 percent of the vote the other time".

In 1984, Al Gore successfully ran for a seat in the US Senate, which had been vacated by Republican Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker.

Al Gore was "unopposed in the Democratic Senatorial primary and won the general election going away", despite the fact that Republican President Ronald Reagan swept Tennessee in his reelection campaign the same year.

Al Gore defeated Republican senatorial nominee Victor Ashe, subsequently the mayor of Knoxville, and the Republican-turned-Independent, Ed McAteer, founder of the Christian right Religious Roundtable organization that had worked to elect Reagan as president in 1980.

Al Gore voted against the nomination of William Rehnquist as Chief Justice of the United States, as well as the nominations of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas to the US Supreme Court.

Al Gore sat on the House Intelligence Committee and, in 1982, introduced the Gore Plan for arms control, to "reduce chances of a nuclear first strike by cutting multiple warheads and deploying single-warhead mobile launchers".

In 1991, Al Gore was one of ten Democrats who supported the Gulf War.

Al Gore was the first elected official to grasp the potential of computer communications to have a broader impact than just improving the conduct of science and scholarship.

Al Gore sponsored hearings on how advanced technologies might be put to use in areas like coordinating the response of government agencies to natural disasters and other crises.

The bill was passed on December 9,1991, and led to the National Information Infrastructure which Al Gore referred to as the "information superhighway".

Al Gore continued to speak on the topic throughout the 1980s.

In 1990, Senator Al Gore presided over a three-day conference with legislators from over 42 countries which sought to create a Global Marshall Plan, "under which industrial nations would help less developed countries grow economically while still protecting the environment".

Al Gore was thrown 30 feet and then traveled along the pavement for another 20 feet.

Al Gore's eyes were open with the nothingness stare of death, and we prayed, the two of us, there in the gutter, with only my voice.

In 1988, Al Gore sought the Democratic Party's nomination for President of the United States.

Al Gore currently denies any interest, but he carefully does not reject the idea out of hand.

Al Gore thought he would be the only serious Southern contender; he had not counted on Jesse Jackson.

Al Gore next placed great hope on Super Tuesday where they split the Southern vote: Jackson winning Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Virginia; Al Gore winning Arkansas, North Carolina, Kentucky, Nevada, Tennessee, and Oklahoma.

The New York Times said that Al Gore lost support due to his attacks against Jackson, Dukakis, and others.

Al Gore's policies changed substantially in 2000, reflecting his eight years as vice president.

Clinton and Al Gore accepted the nomination at the Democratic National Convention on July 17,1992.

Al Gore would participate in one vice-presidential debate against Vice President Dan Quayle, and Admiral James Stockdale.

Clinton and Al Gore received 370 electoral votes, versus the incumbent ticket's 168, and Perot's 0.

Al Gore served as vice president during the Clinton administration.

However, Al Gore had to compete with First Lady Hillary for President Clinton's influence, starting when she was appointed to the health-care task force without Al Gore's consultation.

Al Gore had a particular interest in reducing "waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government and advocated trimming the size of the bureaucracy and the number of regulations".

Clinton and Al Gore entered office planning to finance research that would "flood the economy with innovative goods and services, lifting the general level of prosperity and strengthening American industry".

Al Gore first discussed his plans to emphasize information technology at UCLA on January 11,1994, in a speech at The Superhighway Summit.

On March 29,1994, Al Gore made the inaugural keynote to a Georgetown University symposium on governmental reform with a lecture entitled, "The new job of the federal executive".

Al Gore spoke on how technology was changing the nature of government, public administration, and management in general, noting that while in the past deep hierarchical structures were necessary to manage large organizations, technology was offering more accurate and streamlined access to information, thus facilitating flatter management structures.

Al Gore was involved in a number of projects including NetDay '96 and 24 Hours in Cyberspace.

Al Gore launched the GLOBE program on Earth Day '94, an education and science activity that, according to Forbes magazine, "made extensive use of the Internet to increase student awareness of their environment".

In 1998, Al Gore began promoting a NASA satellite that would provide a constant view of the Earth, marking the first time such an image would have been made since The Blue Marble photo from the 1972 Apollo 17 mission.

In 1996, Al Gore became involved in a "Chinagate" campaign finance controversy over his attendance at an event at the Buddhist Hsi Lai Temple in Hacienda Heights, California.

In March 1997, Al Gore had to explain phone calls which he made to solicit funds for Democratic Party for the 1996 election.

In 1998, at a conference of APEC hosted by Malaysia, Al Gore objected to the indictment, arrest and jailing of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's longtime second-in-command Anwar Ibrahim, a move which received a negative response from leaders there.

Ten years later, Al Gore again protested when Ibrahim was arrested a second time, a decision condemned by Malaysian foreign minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim.

Al Gore held his own against Kemp, and kept President Clinton's large lead against Dole stable.

Al Gore discussed the possibility of running during a March 9,1999, interview with CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer.

Former UCLA professor of information studies Philip E Agre and journalist Eric Boehlert argued that three articles in Wired News led to the creation of the widely spread urban legend that Gore claimed to have "invented the Internet", which followed this interview.

Al Gore's initiatives led directly to the commercialization of the Internet.

Al Gore was introduced by his eldest daughter, Karenna Gore Schiff.

In making the speech, Al Gore distanced himself from Bill Clinton, who he stated had lied to him.

Al Gore faced an early challenge by former New Jersey senator Bill Bradley.

Bradley was the only candidate to oppose Al Gore and was considered a "fresh face" for the White House.

Al Gore challenged Bradley to a series of debates which took the form of "town hall" meetings.

Al Gore went on the offensive during these debates leading to a drop in the polls for Bradley.

Al Gore then swept all of the primaries on Super Tuesday while Bradley finished a distant second in each state.

Al Gore eventually went on to win every primary and caucus and, in March 2000 even won the first primary election ever held over the Internet, the Arizona Presidential Primary.

Al Gore accepted his party's nomination and spoke about the major themes of his campaign, stating in particular his plan to extend Medicare to pay for prescription drugs and to work for a sensible universal health-care system.

On election night, news networks first called Florida for Al Gore, later retracted the projection, and then called Florida for Bush, before finally retracting that projection as well.

The results of the decision led to Al Gore winning the popular vote by approximately 500,000 votes nationwide, but receiving 266 electoral votes to Bush's 271.

Bill Clinton and Al Gore had maintained an informal public distance for eight years, but they reunited for the media in August 2009.

The next year, Al Gore gave a speech which covered many topics, including what he called "religious zealots" who claim special knowledge of God's will in American politics.

In 2006, Al Gore criticized Bush's use of domestic wiretaps without a warrant.

The flights were flown by volunteer airline crews and medically staffed by Al Gore's cousin, retired Col.

Al Gore used his political influence to expedite landing rights in New Orleans.

People were speculating that Al Gore would be a candidate for the 2004 presidential election.

On December 16,2002 Al Gore announced that he would not run in 2004.

The prospect of a Al Gore candidacy arose again between 2006 and early 2008 in light of the upcoming 2008 presidential election.

Al Gore began to give a speech that appeared to be leading up to an announcement that he would run for president.

Al Gore's popularity was indicated in polls which showed that even without running, he was coming in second or third among possible Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards.

Al Gore remained firm in his decision and declined to run for the presidency.

Interest in having Al Gore run for the 2016 presidential election arose in 2014 and again in 2015, although he did not declare any intention to do so.

Al Gore was criticized for this endorsement by eight Democratic contenders particularly since he did not endorse his former running mate Joe Lieberman.

Al Gore responded by stating that these events would not take place because a candidate would be nominated through the primary process.

Senator Ted Kennedy had urged Al Gore to endorse Senator Barack Obama though Al Gore declined.

When Obama became the presumptive Democratic nominee for president on June 3,2008, speculation began that Al Gore might be tapped for the vice presidency.

On June 16,2008, one week after Hillary Clinton had suspended her campaign, Al Gore endorsed Obama in a speech given in Detroit, Michigan which renewed speculation of an Obama-Al Gore ticket.

Al Gore stated that he was not interested in being vice president again.

Such support led to new speculation after Obama was elected president during the 2008 presidential election that Al Gore would be named a member of the Obama administration.

However, Democratic officials and Al Gore's spokeswoman stated that during the meeting the only subject under discussion was the climate crisis, and Al Gore would not be joining the Obama administration.

On December 19,2008, Al Gore described Obama's environmental administrative choices of Carol Browner, Steven Chu, and Lisa Jackson as "an exceptional team to lead the fight against the climate crisis".

Al Gore repeated his neutrality eight years later during the Democratic presidential primaries of 2016 until endorsing Hillary Clinton on July 25,2016, the first day of that year's Democratic National Convention.

Al Gore appeared with her at a rally on Miami Dade College's Kendall Campus on October 11,2016.

Al Gore has been involved with environmental issues since 1976 when as a freshman congressman, he held the "first congressional hearings on the climate change, and co-sponsor[ed] hearings on toxic waste and global warming".

Al Gore continued to speak on the topic throughout the 1980s, and is still prevalent in the environmental community.

Al Gore was known as one of the Atari Democrats, later called the "Democrats' Greens, politicians who see issues like clean air, clean water and global warming as the key to future victories for their party".

In 1990, Senator Al Gore presided over a three-day conference with legislators from over 42 countries which sought to create a Global Marshall Plan, "under which industrial nations would help less developed countries grow economically while still protecting the environment".

In 2004, Al Gore co-launched Generation Investment Management, a company for which he serves as chair.

Al Gore helped to organize the Live Earth benefit concerts.

In November 2021, Al Gore spoke at the early stages of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland.

Al Gore later criticised the Morrison government for failing to increase Australia's 2030 emissions reduction target.

Al Gore ruled that the film could be shown to schoolchildren in the UK if guidance notes given to teachers were amended to balance out the film's one-sided political views.

Al Gore's spokesperson responded in 2007 that the court had upheld the film's fundamental thesis and its use as an educational tool.

In 2009, Al Gore described the British court ruling as being "in my favor".

Critics of Al Gore have jumped on a statement he made in a 1999 interview on CNN with Wolf Blitzer by misquoting him as claiming he was instrumental in "inventing the internet".

Al Gore has been characterized as having either misspoke, or failed to clarify his important part in the transition of the internet from a defense network to a public network.

Al Gore spent years promoting the internet and high-speed telecommunications as being important to the world as far back as the 1970s.

In 1997, Al Gore was having a late-night conversation with two reporters aboard Air Force Two when he casually mentioned that he had either read or was told that he and Tipper's early pre-marital relationship in Boston while Al Gore was at Harvard was the basis for Oliver and Jenny Barrett, the protagonists of Erich Segal's novel Love Story and its film adaptation.

One of the reporters present, New York Times reporter Rick Berke, stated that Al Gore didn't offer it as a fact and that it was just second-hand info from a Nashville Tennessean article or reporter who had interviewed Segal.

However, the other reporter present, Karen Tumulty included the quote in her own article and presented it as though Al Gore claimed it as fact, which claim was picked up by numerous publications afterward as being another example of Al Gore bragging about an incident that was either a lie or misleading.

Al Gore met Mary Elizabeth "Tipper" Aitcheson at his St Albans senior prom in 1965.

In May 2012, it was reported that Al Gore started dating Elizabeth Keadle of Rancho Santa Fe, California.

Al Gore is Baptist, and was a member of Georgetown Baptist Church and Mount Vernon Baptist Church in Washington, DC.

Al Gore was a keynote speaker at the 2008 New Baptist Covenant convention.

Al Gore is possibly related to the Albert "Al" N Gore who ran in the 2012 Mississippi Senate election.

Al Gore is the recipient of a number of awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, a Primetime Emmy Award for Current TV in 2007, a Webby Award in 2005, the Dan David Prize in 2008 and the Prince of Asturias Award in 2007 for International Cooperation.

Al Gore was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2008.

Al Gore starred in the 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth, which won an Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2007 and wrote the book An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It, which won a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 2009.