Leaders Interesting Facts

• President Enrique Pena Nieto: Fathered two children with two different women while he was married; one son died as an infant
• President Xi Jinping: In 1969-1975, he worked as an agricultural laborer in Liangjiahe, Shaanxi. Xi is among the millions of urban youths who were "sent down," forced to leave cities to work as laborers in the countryside under Mao's policies.
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi: Modi was denied a visa to the United States in 2005, but has been granted one since being elected Prime Minister.
• President Vladimir Putin: His wife and he announce their divorce at the interval of a ballet. He has two daughters, both in their mid-twenties, who are unknown.  He remembers hunting rats when he was living in an apartment with three families.
• President Joachim Gauck: Gauck was narrowly defeated by Christian Wulff in the Presidential elections to replace Horst Köhler in 2010.
• Chancellor Angela Merkel: She has a doctorate in physical chemistry.
• Prime Minister David Cameron: He is the youngest premier since Lord Liverpool in 1812.
• President François Hollande:He gained French citizenship after being left behind on a school exchange trip to Rouen.   François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande was born on August 12, 1954, in Rouen, France to a right-wing physician father and a progressive social worker mother. The family moved to Paris when Hollande was 13.
• President Dilma Rousseff: She joined the resistance and was eventually captured and taken to jail, where she was allegedly tortured.
• President Bashar al-Assad: He became president of Syria in 2000 when his father died of a heart attack.
• Prime Minister Stephen Harper: In high school, Harper joined the Young Liberals Club. He went on to find the Reform Party.
• Prime Minister Shinzō Abe: He was Japan's first prime minister born after WWII.
• President Reuven Rivlin: He's Israel's 10th president.