Today is the birthday of the first president of Armenia: Levon Ter-Petrosyan is 80 years old.

Today marks the 80th anniversary of the birth of the first President of the Republic of Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrosyan.

Ter-Petrosyan was born in the Syrian city of Aleppo. In 1946, he moved with his family to Yerevan. He received his education at Yerevan State University (Department of Oriental Studies of the Philological Faculty, 1963-68), and continued his studies at the USSR Academy of Sciences (Leningrad Department of the Institute of Oriental Studies, 1969-1972). After completing a four-year course at the Department of Military Science of Yerevan State University, he received a specialization in military translator.

He began his political activism during the student unrest that arose in the 1960s. He took an active part in the Artsakh movement, the Artsakh liberation war, headed the Supreme Council of the Armenian SSR, and was elected President of the newly formed Republic of Armenia in the first presidential elections held on October 16, 1991. He was re-elected to that position in 1996. He resigned from the post of President on February 3, 1998.

In the fall of 2007, a number of political forces and public organizations nominated him as a candidate for President of Armenia.