US President Joe Biden: His life in pictures
Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the first of four children of Catherine Eugenia Finnegan Biden and Joseph Robinette Biden, Sr. In 1953, the Biden family moved to Claymont, Delaware.
Biden graduated from the University of Delaware and Syracuse Law School and served as a member of the local council.
At age 29, President Biden became one of the youngest Americans ever elected to the United States Senate.
The aspiring politician celebrated with his first wife, Neilia, in November 1972.
But weeks after his Senate election, tragedy struck when his wife Neilia and daughter Naomi were killed, and sons Hunter and Beau were critically injured, in a car accident.
He was sworn into the US Senate at his sons' hospital bedsides.
In 1977, Biden married Jill Jacobs, and three years later their daughter Ashley was born.
Biden has long credited his second wife as being a bedrock for his family and an astute political adviser.
Biden soon made his mark in the chamber of the US Senate and on the national political landscape by the late 1970s.
Here he speaks with then US President Jimmy Carter at a fundraising event in Delaware in 1978.
Later that year, Biden was re-elected to the Senate.
In 1987, Biden made his first bid to become Democratic presidential candidate in the following year's election, but was unsuccessful.
Here he gestures during a speech to students on the University of Iowa campus.
Biden became increasingly involved in helping shaping US foreign policy as chairman or senior member of the Senate's foreign affairs committee for 12 years.
His overseas visits included visiting Afghanistan in 2002 after it was occupied by a US-led military coalition.
Biden made a second bid for the US presidency at the 2008 election but lost out to the Democratic candidate and future president Barack Obama.
Biden agreed to become Obama's Vice President and was regarded as an experienced and steadying hand for the young Obama.
He took the oath of office for the second-most powerful job in American politics in January 2009.
Biden, along with then US secretary of state Hillary Clinton became a key adviser to the president during the eight-year Obama administration.
Here he is shown in the White House situation room during the successful US Navy Seals raid on the compound of 9/11 mastermind Osama Bin Laden in May 2011.
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