Barack Obama was born at the Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Stanley Ann Dunham, a White American from Wichita, Kansas, and Barack Obama, Sr., a Luo from Nyang’oma Kogelo, Nyanza Province, Kenya. Obama's parents met in 1960 in a Russian language class at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, where his father was a foreign student on scholarship. The couple married on February 2, 1961. Obama's parents separated when Obama was two years old, and they divorced in 1964. Obama's father returned to Kenya and saw his son only once more before dying in an automobile accident in 1982.

Following high school, Obama moved to Los Angeles, where he studied at Occidental College for two years. He then transferred to Columbia University in New York City, where he majored in political science with a specialization in international relations. Obama graduated with a B.A. from Columbia in 1983.

Obama entered Harvard Law School in late 1988. He was selected as an editor of the Harvard Law Review at the end of his first year, and president of the journal in his second year. During his summers, he returned to Chicago where he worked as a summer associate at the law firms of Sidley & Austin in 1989 and Hopkins & Sutter in 1990. After graduating with a Juris Doctor (J.D.) magna cum laude from Harvard in 1991, he returned to Chicago. Obama's election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review gained national media attention^.

Political career

State legislator: 1997–2004

Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996

U.S. Senator: 2005–2008

 United States Senate career of Barack Obama

Obama was sworn in as a senator on January 4, 2005. Obama was the fifth African-American Senator in U.S. history, and the third to have been popularly elected.

 

Senate bill sponsors Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Obama discussing the Coburn–Obama Transparency Act.

Obama voted in favor of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and cosponsored the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act.

 

2008 Presidential campaign

 Barack Obama presidential primary campaign, 2008 and Barack Obama presidential campaign, 2008

On February 10, 2007, Obama announced his candidacy for President of the United States in front of the Old State Capitol building in Springfield, Illinois.

Obama stands on stage with his wife and two daughters just before announcing his presidential candidacy in Springfield, Illinois, Feb. 10, 2007.

Obama delivers his presidential election victory speech.

Election victory

Main article: Presidential transition of Barack Obama

President-elect Obama meets with President George W. Bush in the Oval Office, November 10, 2008.

On November 4, 2008, Barack Obama defeated John McCain in the general election with 365 electoral votes to McCain's 173 and became the first African American to be elected President of the United States.

Presidency

 Barack Obama 2009 presidential inauguration

 Presidency of Barack Obama

The inauguration of Barack Obama as the forty-fourth President, and Joe Biden as Vice President, took place on January 20, 2009. The theme of the inauguration was "A New Birth of Freedom," commemorating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln.