Barack Obama The 44th President of the USA

The first African American to hold the office, he was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009. Nine months later, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. He was re-elected president in November 2012. The 44th President of

the United States.

Obama was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii. The first president to be born there. His mother was white American and his father Kenyan, who married in February 1961. They divorced in March 1964. In 1963, Obama’s mother met his Step-Father to be, and they married in March 1965. The family moved to Indonesia in 1967. Obama returned to Hawaii in 1971 to attend school.

Obama has also written and talked about using alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine during his teenage years. Obama was also a member of the ‘choom gang’, a self-named group of friends that spent time together and occasionally smoked marijuana. At the 2008 Civil Forum on the Presidency, Obama expressed regret for his high-school drug use.

Late 1981, he moved to Columbia University in New York City, where he majored in political science with a specialty in international relations. He graduated in 1983. In 1988 in entered Harvard Law School, graduating with ‘great honors’ in 1991.

Photo of Obama as a freshman at Occidental College in LA (1981).

Obama was elected to the Illinois State Senate in 1996. He was re-elected in 1998 and again in 2002.

Obama resigned from the Illinois Senate in November 2004 following his election to the US Senate.

Obama was sworn in as a senator on January 3, 2005, becoming the only Senate member of the Congressional Black Caucus. November 16, 2008, Obama resigned as a State Senator, to focus on his transition period for the presidency.

Results of the 2004 US Senate race in Illinois.

(Blue were won by Obama.)

February 10, 2007, Obama announced his candidacy for President in front of the Old State Capitol building in Springfield, Illinois. The site was symbolic because it was also where Abraham Lincoln delivered his historic ’House Divided’ speech in 1858.

A large number of candidates entered the Democratic Party presidential primaries. The field narrowed to a duel between Obama and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. On June 7, 2008, Clinton ended her campaign and endorsed Obama.

On November 4, Obama won the presidency against John McCain the Republican candidate with 365 electoral votes to 173 received by McCain. Obama won 52.9% of the popular vote to McCain's 45.7%.

On April 4, 2011, Obama announced his re-election campaign in a video that he posted on his website. On November 6, 2012, Obama won against Mitt Romney with 332 electoral votes, exceeding the 270 needed for him to be re-elected. With 51% of the popular vote, Obama became the first Democratic president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to twice win the majority of the popular vote.

He urged Congress to reintroduce an expired ban on ‘military-style’ assault weapons, such as those used in several recent mass shootings.

One month after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, Obama signed 23 executive orders and a series of sweeping proposals.

Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act at the White House, March 23, 2010. The Act has faced a lot of opposition throughout the USA.

Obama called for legislation reform on health care in the USA. His proposal was to spend $900 billion over 10 years and include a government insurance plan. The Affordable Care Act

In a 2006 interview, Obama highlighted the diversity of his extended family: "It's like a little mini-United Nations“.

Obama said. "I've got relatives who look like Bernie Mac, and I've got relatives who look like Margaret Thatcher."