Barack Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4th 1961 to a Kenyan father and a mother from Kansas.
He was also raised by his grandfather and grandmother.
After working his way through college with the help of scholarships and student loans he moved to Chicago where he worked as an organiser to help rebuild communities devastated by the closure of local steel plants.
He went on to Harvard Law School where he became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review.
Move to Chicago
Upon graduation he took a job teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago.
He also remained active in his community leading a drive that registered more than 150,000 voters in Illinois leading up to the 1992 election.
He was first elected to the Illinois State Senate in 1996 and got elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004.
He was elected the 44th President of the United States on November 4th 2008, and sworn in on January 20th 2009.
He and his wife Michelle have 2 daughters – Malia and Sasha.
Watch an “Obama for America” TV advert below:
He also went on a 2-day, non-stop tour with grassroots events in Iowa, Colorado, Nevada, Florida, Virginia and Ohio:
