Barack Hussein Obama was born on August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii. His father was a black man (also named Barack Hussein Obama) born in Africa and his mother was a white woman born in Kansas.Obama's father and his mother separated and divorced when Obama was a young child. His mother remarried in 1967 when Obama was 6 years old to a man named Lolo Soetoro.
His family moved to Soetoro's home country which was Indonesia. Obama lived there until he was 10 years old when he returned to live in Hawaii with his maternal grandparents who raised him from then on.
Obama moved to Los Angeles for college. After two years he transferred to Columbia University in NYC. Obama graduated from Columbia in 1983. Obama then moved to Chicago where he worked as a community organizer for three years until the age of 27 when he moved to Massachusetts so that he could attend Harvard Law School. In 1990, during his second year, he was elected President of the Harvard Law Review. He was the first black person elected President of the Harvard Law Review. This remarkable feat was widely reported upon. He graduated from Harvard Law School magna cum laude in 1991.
He moved back to Chicago at that time and married Michelle Robinson in 1992. They have had two daughters, the first Malia Ann was born in 1998 and the second Natasha was born in 2001.
Obama began teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School in 1992 and continued doing so for 12 years. During this time he also directed the Illinois' Project Vote which registered 150,000 African Americans in the state.
In 1996 Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate. While a State Senator Obama was able to gain support for ethics reform and health care laws. Obama re-elected twice and held the position until he was elected as one of Illinois two US Senators in 2004.
In 2000 Obama unsuccessfully ran for congress. He lost in the primary to Bobby Rush who is an African American Democrat who has been a congressman since 1993. He is still in the House today. Despite being rivals in 2000, Rush has supported Obama in his campaign for the Senate in 2004 and in his campaign for the Presidency in 2008.
In 2004 Obama easily defeated Republican Alan Keyes to become a US Senator. In fact his 70 percent to 27 percent defeat of Keyes set the all time record for margin of victory in a statewide election in Illinois. The election between Obama & Keyes was also noteworthy as it was the first Senatorial election in US history in which the two major candidates were both African Americans.
During that 2004 campaign Obama was selected to be the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention and the speech is considered by most to be responsible launching his national political career. His speech was so well received that he was immediately considered to be a rising star in the Democratic party.
On February 10, 2007 Obama announced his candidacy for the 2008 Democratic nomination. At the time Hillary Clinton was considered a huge favorite to win the nomination. The race for the Democratic primary became a battle between Obama & Clinton as the other challengers quickly fell by the wayside. The battle continued on into June as Clinton would not give in until the very end despite Obama's clear mathematical advantage beginning in February.
In the general election Obama selected Joe Biden as his Vice Presidential running mate and they faced Republican John McCain selected Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential running mate. Despite polls being close through much of the campaign period, by mid October Obama had pulled away and was decisively elected the first African American president of the United States. He is currently the 44th President of the United States.