Madeleine Albright, first female U.S. secretary of state, dies

Family confirmed that Madeleine Albright, 84, died of cancer Wednesday afternoon. Former President Bill Clinton called her “an extraordinary human being … who saw her jobs as both an obligation and an opportunity.” Several world leaders also called her a pioneer, a trailblazing feminist, and an example of the American dream.

What is she known for? Albright fled the Nazi regime in Eastern Europe as a child and later became a top U.S. diplomat and the first woman to hold the office of U.S. secretary of state from 1997 to 2001, during the last four years of Clinton’s administration. Albright had been Clinton’s ambassador to the United Nations before that. The lifelong Democrat was credited with steering post–Cold War American foreign policy. She often promoted diplomacy backed by force, toeing a hard line on relations with Cuba and supporting NATO expansion into Soviet countries. She advised Clinton to go to war against Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in 1999 to prevent ethnic cleansing of Albanian Muslims in Kosovo. Critics called the NATO airstrikes “Albright’s War,” for which she took responsibility: “We cannot watch crimes against humanity.” She said her greatest regret was not working to prevent the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Exactly one month before she died, Albright, who was the first U.S. official to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin when he took office, wrote an editorial warning him against invading Ukraine.