Barack Obama

Barack Obama is an American politician who served as the 44th President of the United States from 2009 to 2017. He was the first Black person ever elected to the office. Before becoming president, he was a lawyer, a community organizer, and a U.S. senator from Illinois. He was born in 1961.

Obama's life story is unusual for a U.S. president. His father came from Kenya, in East Africa. His mother was a white woman from Kansas. They met as students in Hawaii, where Obama was born. He spent part of his childhood in Indonesia and then returned to Hawaii to live with his grandparents. He has written that growing up between cultures shaped how he saw the world.

After college, Obama worked in Chicago, helping people in poor neighborhoods on the South Side. He later went to Harvard Law School. There he became the first Black president of the Harvard Law Review, a famous student-run journal. He then taught law and was elected to the Illinois state senate in 1996.

In 2004, Obama gave a speech at the Democratic National Convention that made him famous overnight. He talked about one America rather than a red America and a blue America. A few months later, he won a seat in the U.S. Senate. Just four years after that, he ran for president and won, defeating Senator John McCain in 2008. On election night, more than 200,000 people gathered in Chicago's Grant Park to celebrate.

As president, Obama signed the Affordable Care Act in 2010. The law helped about 20 million more Americans get health insurance, though people still argue about whether it works well. He ordered the military mission that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda, in 2011. He helped the country recover from a serious economic crisis. He also became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Cuba in nearly 90 years.

Obama was elected to a second term in 2012. In 2009, only months into his first term, he was given the Nobel Peace Prize. The choice surprised many people, including Obama himself, because he had not yet done much in office. He accepted the prize as a call to action rather than a reward.

After leaving the White House, Obama and his wife, Michelle, started a foundation that trains young leaders around the world. He has also written best-selling books about his life and his time as president.