- President Barack Obama was born Barack Hussein Obama II on August 4, 1961 in Honolulu Hawaii.
- Did you know that Barack in Swahili means “one who is blessed”?
- Barack Obama became the 44th President of the United States of America on January 20th 2009.
- He was the first African American President of the United States.
- Barack Obama’s mother was named Stanley Ann Dunham. She went by the name Ann. She was from Kansas and was Caucasian. She died of cancer in 1995.
- Barack Obama’s father was named Barack Obama Sr. He was born in Kenya a country in Africa. He was killed in a car accident in 1982.
- Barack Obama’s parents divorced when he was 2.
- Ann married another man who was from Indonesia. She and Barack moved to Jakarta in 1967.
- When Barack was 10 years old he moved back to Hawaii to live with his grandparents.
- He attended the Punahou school in Hawaii. In school he had the nickname “O”Bomer because he was a really good basketball player.
- He graduated from the Punahou school in 1979.
- After graduation, he attended Occidental College in Los Angeles.
- In 1981, he transferred to Columbia University in New York. He graduated in 1983.
- Barack Obama wanted to get into law and entered Harvard Law School in 1988. He graduated from Harvard in 1991.
- He moved to Chicago and became a civil rights lawyer, He also taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992-2004.
- He met Michelle LaVaugh Robinson who was also working in a law office.
- Barack and Michelle got married on October 18, 1992.
- They have two children Malia and Natasha (Sasha).
- In 1992 Barack was the director of Project Vote. It was a campaign to get minorities registered to vote. Under his direction 150,000 African Americans were registered to vote.
- In 1993 Barack worked as director of the Developing Communities Project. It was a community organization. He helped set up job training, college prep tutoring and a tenants rights organization.
- In 1996 Barack Obama ran for Senate in the state of Illinois. He won and served as senator until 2004.
- In 2006 Barack Obama won a Grammy for his autobiography Dreams from My Father.
- He entered the presidential election in 2008 as a democrat.
- He won the election and was inaugurated on January 20, 2008.
- An estimated 2 million people came to watch his inauguration, the most in history.
- When Barack Obama became president he kept his promise to Malia and Sasha and got a dog.
- The family dog was named Bo. He is a black and white Portuguese Water dog.
- Barack Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 for his “extraordinary” efforts at international diplomacy and foreign policy.
- Barack Obama reformed health care by passing the Patient Protection Act and Affordable Care Act on March 23, 2010.
- Barack Obama won a second term as president in 2012.
- Barack Obama has a wooden hand holding an egg on his desk. This is a Kenyan symbol of reminding people of the fragility of life.
- Fragility means being delicate, vulnerable; being easily broken or damaged.
- President Obama fun fact: He has read all of the Harry Potter Books.
- President Obama fun fact: He worked at Baskin-Robbins when he was a teenager.
Barack Obama Quotes
“If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep walking, eventually you’ll make progress.”
“We need to steer clear of this poverty of ambition, where people want to drive fancy cars and live in nice apartments but don’t want to work hard to accomplish these things. Everyone should try to realize their full potential.”
“The future rewards those who press on. I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have time to complain. I’m going to press on.”
“We have an obligation and a responsibility to be investing in our students and our schools. We must make sure that people who have the grades, the desire and the will, but not the money, can still get the best education possible.”
“My fellow Americans, we are and always will be a nation of immigrants. We were strangers once, too.”
“I don’t care whether you’re driving a hybrid or an SUV. If you’re headed for a cliff, you have to change direction. That’s what the American people called for in November, and that’s what we intend to deliver.”
“It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get where we are today, but we have just begun. Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today.”