Facts About Country Leaders

Enrique Pena Nieto
- He is the 5th member of his extended family to serve as governor of the State of Mexico. His cousin directly preceded him as governor.
- He traveled to Washington, D.C. in 2012 to meet with President Barack Obama.

Xi Jinping
- He is the 2nd national leader who's wife is an entertainer.
- He is the first national leader with a Ph.D

Narendra Modi
- He is a former chief minister of Gujarat.
- He is a self-declared Hindu nationalist.

Vladimir Putin
- He has a black belt in Judo.
- He served in the KBG as an intelligence officer before becoming involved in politics.

Joachim Gauck
- He is the son of a survivor of the Soviet Gulag.
- He has been serving since 2012.

David Cameron
- He is a descendant of King William IV.
- He is the youngest prime minister since 1812.

Francois Hollande
- He is the first socialist president since 1995.
- He was inaugurated to be president in 2012.

Dilma Rousseff
- Prior to running for president she had never run for an elected office.
- She was jailed and allegedly tortured in early 1970s  for joining the resistance movement against the military dictatorship.

Bashar al-Assad
- Once his brother died, he decided to take the position to be their new heir for presidency. 
- He was Colonel of the Syrian Army in 1999.

Stephen Harper
- He showed early interest in politics, when he was in high school.
- He is the first prime minister to come from the newly reconstituted conservative party.

Shinzo Abe
- He was Japan's first prime minister born after WWII.
- His grandfather was Japans prime minister and so was his uncle.

Benjamin Netanyahu
- Spent his teen years in the United States and went to high school in Philadelphia.
- First Israeli prime minister to be born after the state was founded in 1948.