Donald John Trump is the 45th and current President of the United States. Before entering politics, he was a businessman and television personality.
Net worth: 3.1 billion USD (2018) Trending
Born: June 14, 1946 (age 72 years), Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, New York City, New York, United States
Height: 1.9 m
Party: Republican Party
Spouse: Melania Trump (m. 2005), Marla Maples (m. 1993–1999), Ivana Trump (m. 1977–1992)
Children: Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Tiffany Trump, Eric Trump, Barron Trump
Trump's ancestors originated from the German village of Kallstadt in the Palatinate on his father's side, and from the Outer Hebrides in Scotland on his mother's side. All of his grandparents and his mother were born in Europe.[1]
Trump's paternal grandfather, Frederick Trump, first immigrated to the United States in 1885 at the age of 16 and became a citizen in 1892.[2] He amassed a fortune operating boomtown restaurants and boarding houses in the Seattle area and the Klondike region of Canada during its gold rush.[2] On a visit to Kallstadt, he met Elisabeth Christ and married her in 1902. The couple permanently settled in New York in 1905.[3] Frederick died from influenza during the 1918 pandemic.[4]
Trump as a child
Trump's father Fred was born in 1905 in the Bronx. Fred started working with his mother in real estate when he was 15, shortly after his father's death. Their company, "E. Trump & Son",[nb 2] founded in 1923,[9] was primarily active in the New York boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn. Fred eventually built and sold thousands of houses, barracks, and apartments.[4][10] In 1971, Donald Trump was made president of the company, which was later renamed the Trump Organization.[11]
In spite of his German ancestry, "Fred Trump sought to pass himself off as Swedish amid anti-German sentiment sparked by World War II."[12] Donald propagated this myth in The Art of the Deal.[12][13][14]
Trump's mother Mary Anne MacLeod was born in Tong, Lewis, Scotland. At age 18 in 1930, she immigrated to New York, where she worked as a maid.[15] Fred and Mary were married in 1936 and raised their family in Queens.[15][16]
Early life and education
A black-and-white photograph of Donald Trump as a teenager, smiling and wearing a dark pseudo-military uniform with various badges and a light-colored stripe crossing his right shoulder.
Senior yearbook photo of Trump in 1964 wearing the uniform of his private boarding school, New York Military Academy[17][18]
Donald John Trump was born on June 14, 1946, at the Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, Queens, New York City, the fourth of five children.[19] Trump grew up in Jamaica, Queens, and attended the Kew-Forest School from kindergarten through seventh grade. At age 13, he was enrolled in the New York Military Academy, a private boarding school, after his parents discovered that he had made frequent trips into Manhattan without their permission.[20][21]
In 1964, Trump enrolled at Fordham University.[17][22] After two years, he transferred to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.[22][23] While at Wharton, he worked at the family business, Elizabeth Trump & Son.[24] He graduated in May 1968 with a Bachelor of Science degree in economics.[22][25][26]
While in college from 1964 to 1968, Trump obtained four student deferments from serving in the military.[27][28] In 1966, he was deemed fit for service based upon a medical examination and in July 1968, after graduating from college, was briefly classified as eligible to serve by a local draft board. In October 1968, he was given a medical deferment which he later attributed to spurs in both heels, and classified as 1-Y, "unqualified for duty except in the case of a national emergency."[29] In the December 1969 draft lottery, Trump's birthday, June 14, received a high number which would have given him a low probability to be called to military service even without the 1-Y.[29][30][31] In 1972, he was reclassified as 4-F, disqualifying him for service.[30][32]
Family
Main article: Family of Donald Trump
Trump grew up with three elder siblings—Maryanne, Fred Jr., and Elizabeth—as well as a younger brother named Robert. Maryanne is an inactive Federal Appeals Court judge on the Third Circuit.[33]
Trump has five children by three marriages, as well as nine grandchildren.[34][35] His first two marriages ended in widely publicized divorces.[36]
In 1977, Trump married Czech model Ivana Zelníčková at the Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan, in a ceremony performed by the Reverend Norman Vincent Peale.[37][38] They had three children: Donald Jr. (born 1977), Ivanka (born 1981), and Eric (born 1984). Ivana became a naturalized United States citizen in 1988.[39] The couple divorced in 1992, following Trump's affair with actress Marla Maples.[40]
In October 1993, Maples gave birth to Trump's daughter, who was named Tiffany in honor of high-end retailer Tiffany & Company.[41] Maples and Trump were married two months later in December 1993.[42] They divorced in 1999,[43] and Tiffany was raised by Marla in California.[44]
Trump is sworn in as president on January 20, 2017. From left to right: Trump, his wife Melania, and his children Donald Jr., Barron, Ivanka, Eric, and Tiffany.
In 2005, Trump married his third wife, Slovenian model Melania Knauss, at Bethesda-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Palm Beach, Florida.[45] In 2006, Melania became a United States citizen[46] and gave birth to a son, Barron.[47][48] Melania became First Lady when Trump became president in January 2017.[49]
Upon his inauguration as president, Trump delegated the management of his real estate business to his two adult sons, Eric and Don Jr.[50] His daughter Ivanka resigned from the Trump Organization and moved to Washington, D.C., with her husband Jared Kushner. She serves as an assistant to the president,[51] and he is a Senior Advisor in the White House.[52]
Religion
Trump is Presbyterian.[53][54][55] His ancestors were Lutheran on his paternal grandfather's side in Germany[56] and Presbyterian on his mother's side in Scotland.[57] His parents married in a Manhattan Presbyterian church in 1936.[58] As a child, he attended the First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica, Queens, where he had his confirmation.[38] In the 1970s, his family joined the Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan.[59] The pastor, Norman Vincent Peale, ministered to Trump's family and mentored him until Peale's death in 1993.[60][59] Trump has cited Peale and his works during interviews when asked about the role of religion in his personal life.[59]
Trump says while he's "not sure" if he's asked God for forgiveness, he takes Holy Communion as often as possible, believing it to be a form of 'cleansing'.[53] While campaigning, Trump referred to The Art of the Deal as his second favorite book after the Bible, saying, "Nothing beats the Bible."[61] The New York Times reported that evangelical Christians nationwide thought "that his heart was in the right place, that his intentions for the country were pure".[62]
Trump has associations with a number of Christian spiritual leaders, including Florida pastor Paula White, who has been called his "closest spiritual confidant".[63] In 2015, he released a list of religious advisers, including James Dobson, Jerry Falwell Jr., Ralph Reed, Michele Bachmann, Robert Jeffress.