Obama, Barack

Impact on the world

Elected the 44th President of the United States on November 4, 2008, becoming the first African American to hold the office, 43 years after passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965; he was reelected in 2012, becoming the first Democratic president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win a majority of the popular vote twice, and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009.

Life & background

Born in Honolulu to a Kenyan father and a Kansas-born mother, Obama graduated from Columbia University before working as a community organizer in Chicago, then became the first Black president of the Harvard Law Review while attending Harvard Law School. He taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago and practiced civil rights law before his 1996 election to the Illinois State Senate, followed by his 2004 election to the U.S. Senate with a record-setting margin for an Illinois Senate race, making him just the third African American senator elected since Reconstruction. After a closely contested primary against Hillary Clinton, Obama won the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination and defeated Republican nominee John McCain in the general election, taking office on January 20, 2009 as the first African American president. His two terms included the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act responding to the Great Recession, the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, the repeal of the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' military policy, and the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court; he was succeeded by Donald Trump following the 2016 election.

Sources

1. Presidency of Barack Obama); Encyclopædia Britannica; Miller Center; Barack Obama Presidential Library