President Barack Obama :: Bio
He’s a great man, but how much do you really know about newly elected President Barack Obama – besides that he’s the 44th President of the United States of America? Read on to find out more!
Early Years
Barack Obama was born on August 4, 1961 in Hawaii. His dad, whose name is also Barack Obama, was born in Kolego, a small village in western Kenya (a country in Africa). His mom, Stanley Ann Dunham, was from Fort Leavenworth in Kansas.Barack’s mom and dad were college students at the University of Hawaii when they met. Unfortunately, their marriage did not last long and they got divorced in 1964, when Barack was just three years old. Barack was then raised by his mom and her parents.
In 1967, Barack’s mom remarried – a man named Lolo Soetoro – and the family moved to Indonesia where Barack’s baby half-sister – Maya – was born in 1970.
In 1971, Barack moved back to Hawaii to go to school; he lived with his grandparents. That same year, Barack’s dad visited him in Hawaii – sadly, he would never see his father again.
College Years
After graduating from high school in 1979, Barack went to Occidental College in Los Angeles. Two years later, he transferred to Columbia University in New York – he graduated in 1983 with a bachelor’s degree in political science. A year earlier, his father tragically died in a car accident in Kenya.
In 1985, Barack moved to Chicago and got a job as a community organizer, helping people improve their lives and become voters. In 1987, he made his first trip back to Kenya, where he visited his dad’s village and met many of his relatives for the first time.
After he came back from Africa, Barack enrolled at Harvard Law School, where he was elected the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, which is a very well-known and important magazine about law, edited by Harvard Law students). He graduated with a degree in law in 1991.
Political Life
Barack moved back to Chicago where he married Michelle Robinson, an attorney, in 1992, and had two daughters – Malia and Sasha. From 1992 until 2004, Barack taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago. Sadly, his mother died of cancer in 1995.
Barack was elected to the Illinois State Senate in 1996, 1998 and 2002. In 2000, he lost a primary election for Congress – but that didn’t stop him. In 2004, he was elected as a Democrat from the State of Illinois to the U.S. Senate.
In the summer of 2008, Barack Obama became the very first African-American to be the presidential candidate of a major political party (the Democrats). On November 4, 2008, after a long and historic campaign, he won the general election, defeating John McCain McCain (a Republican) to become the 44th President of the United States. His presidential inauguration was on January 20, 2009.
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