Hillary Clinton - 10 obscure facts

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Photo / Getty Images

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton touches down for a historic visit to New Zealand tomorrow. We look at some of the more obscure facts about the life of the former first lady.

1. Hillary Clinton is the only first lady to hold a postgraduate degree from Yale Law and became the first to subsequently win a place in public office when she campaigned successfully for the US Senate in 2000.

2. In her first legal case she defended a canning company against a plaintiff's claim they had found a rat's rear end in their can. Though she won the case, she became the butt of her husband and former US President Bill Clinton's jokes for years.

3. From 1986 to 1992, Clinton was a director of America's largest company Walmart, where she reportedly used her influence to champion personal causes like the need for more women in management.

4. When Clinton first heard that Bill Clinton had an affair with Monica Lewinsky, she attributed it to a "vast right-wing conspiracy." The phrase has since been adopted by conservative American commentators such as Rush Limbaugh, who called his fan base "The vast right-wing conspiracy".

5. After graduating in 1969, Clinton worked in Alaska, washing dishes in Mount McKinley National Park and sliming salmon in a fish processing cannery in Valdez. The plant fired her and then shut down after she complained about unhealthy conditions.

6. As a young adult, Clinton was an active Republican, campaigning for Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater in 1964.The Vietnam War, the Civil Rights movement and her view that the Richard Nixon campaign against Nelson Rockefeller included "veiled racism" convinced her to leave the party. She has been a staunch Democrat ever since.

7. Clinton received an $8 million advance on her 562-page autobiography Living History in 2003. It went on to sell more than a million copies in its first month and was translated into 12 languages.

8. As a senator, she voted in favour of both the Afghanistan invasion in 2001 and the Iraq war in 2002. She frustrated fellow Democrats with 2005 comments that immediate withdrawal from Iraq would be a mistake.

9. Her first weeks as Secretary of State were spent phoning dozens of world leaders explaining there would be a change of direction in US foreign policy, saying "we have a lot of damage to repair". Her achievements in the role include cajoling reluctant Israeli and Palestinian negotiators back to the table to discuss peace settlements in September 2010.

10. When Hillary met Sir Edmund Hillary in Nepal in 1995, she told the press that her mother had named her after the famed climber. That was later proven false as Clinton was born in 1947 and Sir Ed made his famous ascent of Mt Everest in 1953. She should more than make up for her mistake in tomorrow's visit, where she is expected to make a significant announcement about a further thawing in the relationship between the US and New Zealand.