In Edinburgh, Scotland.

Blair grew up in Durham, an industrial city in the north of England.

His father, Leo Blair, a lawyer and onetime chairman of the Durham Conservative Association,

Suffered a stroke while campaigning for Parliament in 1963.

Leo Blair’s incapacitation and gradual recovery served as a formative incident in the life of his middle son,

Who would go on to refashion Britain’s Labour Party and, in 1997,

Become the first Labour prime minister since the Conservative revolution effected by Margaret Thatcher in 1979.

Tony Blair attended Edinburgh’s prestigious Fettes College from 1966 to 1971

Before going on to study law at St. John’s College of Oxford University in 1972. At Oxford,

He pursued his interests in acting and music—he was the lead singer of a rock band called Ugly Rumours—and developed an active interest in national politics.

After graduation in 1975, Blair talked his way into an apprenticeship at the legal chambers of Alexander Irvine,

A Queen’s Counsel (QC) and a well-connected member of the Labour Party.

He was called to the bar a year later, and won a permanent position at Irvine’s chambers.

In 1980, Blair married Cherie Booth, a fellow barrister whom he had met during his apprenticeship.

Blair was a practicing barrister from 1976 to 1983, specializing in employment and industrial law.

He joined the Labour Party in 1976, but was disillusioned by some of its main causes—especially nationalization of industry

And increased power of trade unions—and its leadership, including Prime Minister James Callaghan,

Who served from 1976 to 1979.

After a series of labor strikes in late 1978—a period referred to as Britain’s “Winter of Discontent,”

The Labour Party was widely perceived to be controlled by the country’s unions.

Thatcher and her Tory Party were able to ride Britain’s dissatisfaction with the Labour Party

To a landslide victory in 1979, ushering in an era of Conservative domination that would last for the next two decades.

Blair’s first successful foray into politics came in 1983,

When he was elected to Parliament as a Labour MP from Sedgefield, near his hometown of Durham.

Blair represented a new direction in Labour politics, away from the left-wing ideologies

And socialist focus that characterized the party in the late 70s and early 80s.

He served as opposition speaker for Treasury affairs from 1984 to 1987

And for trade and industry from 1987 to 1988.

He was elected to Labour’s shadow cabinet in 1988,

Where he was responsible for energy and employment before becoming home secretary in 1992.

In his work with home affairs, Blair advocated a hard-line Labour stance towards crime that challenged the dominant

Conservative government (now headed by John Major) and paralleled the successful strategy of U.S. President’s Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign.

When Blair was elected leader of the Labour Party in July 1994,

The party had lost four consecutive general elections.

Blair embarked on his comprehensive strategy to restructure the party and its platform,

Changing many of Labour’s traditional goals to bring them more in line with the majority of British voters.

He placed a new party emphasis on free enterprise and economic reform, coining the slogan “New Labour, New Britain.”

While critics called him “Tony Blur” and “Tory Blair” and accused him of standing for nothing so much as being elected,

Blair’s aggressive pursuit of modernization proved effective.

By the end of his first year as party leader, Labour membership had increased by more than 150,000 people

And the party had gained a strong lead in public-opinion polls.

In May 1997, Blair was elected Prime Minister by an overwhelming margin over Major,

Ending an 18-year stretch of Tory dominance.

His success in promoting a resolution of the longstanding conflict in Northern Ireland,

As well as his diplomatic efforts to integrate Britain more fully into the European continent,

Have made him the most popular prime minister in the country’s history.

His aggressive stance against Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic

And the Serbian military during the ethnic conflict in Kosovo in 1999

Made him one of the driving forces behind NATO’s air offensive

And earned him even more support among the British public.

Though his Labour government seemed to lose much support

During such national crises as the foot-and-mouth disease epidemic that ravaged the country's livestock in 2001,

Blair swept to victory in the general election held in June, soundly defeating his Conservative opponent.

Blair and Cherie Booth, now one of Britain’s most prominent barristers,

Have four children, Euan, Nicky, Kathryn, and Leo.

Leo, born May 20, 2000, is the first child born to a sitting prime minister in 152 years.