Madeleine Albright, the first woman to serve as United States secretary of state, has died at the age of 84 years old. Albright Stonebridge Group, a global strategy firm founded by the former government official, confirmed her passing in an email to staff, CNN reported.

Albright’s family released a statement on Twitter, according to the Associated Press, explaining that she succumbed to cancer and that she was “surrounded by family and friends” at the time of her death. “We have lost a loving mother, grandmother, sister, aunt and friend,” the statement read, also characterizing her as a “tireless champion of democracy and human rights.”

Albright was a crucial part of President Bill Clinton’s cabinet. She first served as ambassador to the United Nations before becoming secretary of state during his second term.

She pushed for expanding NATO and also the effort to intervene in the Balkans to stop ethnic cleansing and genocide. The former officials also worked to tamp down on the dissemination of nuclear weapons.

Albright was a self-proclaimed “pragmatic idealist” who coined the term “assertive multilateralism” to describe the Clinton administration’s approach to foreign policy. She grew up in a family that had escaped both the Nazis and communists, which had a profound impact on shaping her worldview.

Albright viewed the United States as an “indispensable nation” in how it used diplomacy to champion democracy worldwide.

“We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us,” she said during an interview with NBC in 1998. “I know that the American men and women in uniform are always prepared to sacrifice for freedom, democracy and the American way of life.”

President Barack Obama awarded Albright the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in 2012.

As this is a breaking story, RedState will provide further updates as they become available.