Brief biography of barack obama
Barack Obama
This article needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(December ) |
Barack Obama | |
---|---|
Official portrait, | |
In office January 20, – January 20, | |
Vice President | Joe Biden |
Preceded by | George W.
Bush |
Succeeded by | Donald Trump |
In office January 3, – November 16, | |
Preceded by | Peter Fitzgerald |
Succeeded by | Roland Burris |
In office January 8, – November 4, | |
Preceded by | Alice Palmer |
Succeeded by | Kwame Raoul |
Born | Barack Hussein Obama II () August 4, (age63) Honolulu, Hawaii U.S. |
Political party | Democratic |
Spouse(s) | |
Children | |
Parents | |
Relatives | Obama family |
Residence | Kalorama, Washington, D.C. |
Education | |
Occupation | |
Awards | Awards and honors |
Signature | |
Website | |
Barack Obama delivers remarks on the death of Osama bin Laden Recorded May 2, |
Barack Hussein Obama II (; born August 4, )[1] is an American politician and attorney.
He was the 44th president of the United States from to He was the first African-American president in U.S. history. A member of the Democratic Party, he also served as member of the Illinois Senate from to and a United States senator from Illinois from to
Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. He married Michelle Robinson in They have two daughters, Malia Obama and Sasha Obama.
Obama was inaugurated in January , as the first African American mixed-race president. As president, he slowly ended US participation in the Iraq War, having prepared the country to defend itself. The al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden was killed while Obama was in office. Also, he contributed to the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.
Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (often called "Obamacare") which changed many health care laws. He also enacted many acts to create public works jobs to help the economy. He became the first president to openly express support for gay marriage, and proposed gun control as a result of the Sandy Hook school shooting.
He was reelected in During his second term, the government partially shut down.
He was able to open diplomatic relations with Cuba. In , the United States joined the Paris Climate Agreement. He attempted to nominate Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court but was unsuccessful in doing so.
Obama left office in January and was succeeded by Republican Donald Trump. He now lives in Washington, D.C. He has ranked high in presidential opinion polls.[2]
Early life
[change | change source]Barack Hussein Obama II was born on August 4, [3] in Kapiʻolani Medical Center for Women and Children (called Kapiʻolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital in ) in Honolulu, Hawaii.[4][5] He is the first President to have been born in Hawaii.[6] His father was a black exchange student from Kenya named Barack Obama Sr.
He died in a motorcycle accident in Kenya in His mother was a white woman from Kansas named Ann Dunham, who was an anthropologist and died in , from uterine cancer.[7]
He spent most of his childhood in Hawaii and Chicago, Illinois, although he lived in Jakarta, Indonesia with his mother and stepfather from age 6 to age [8] He later moved back to Hawaii to live with his grandparents.
Obama is one of 8 siblings. [1]
Education
[change | change source]He started college at Occidental College in Los Angeles, and graduated from Columbia University in New York City.
Vaju kotak biography of barack obama president Barack Obama is the first Black president of the United States. Learn facts about him: his age, height, leadership legacy, quotes, family, and more.After taking time off as a community organizer, Obama went to law school at Harvard University. After law school, Obama worked for a law firm in Hyde Park, Chicago.
Marriage and family
[change | change source]Obama has been married to Michelle Obama since She has a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School.
She worked as a lawyer. They have two daughters, Malia Ann, who was born in [9] and Natasha ("Sasha"), born in They were born at University of Chicago Medical Center in Chicago.[10] They lived in Chicago, but moved into the White House on January 20,
Obama promised his daughters that the family would get a dog if he was elected president.
In April , Senator Ted Kennedy, the brother of former President John F. Kennedy, gave Obama one of his dogs, a Portuguese water dog named Bo.
Obama has a half sister who is a teacher in Hawaii. His father died from a car accident in Kenya. His mother died of ovarian cancer. His maternal grandmother died just before Obama won the election to become President.
Political career
[change | change source]Obama worked for Alice Palmer, an Illinois state senator. In , she chose not to run for re-election so that she could run for U.S. Congress,[11] and Obama decided to run for her Illinois state senate seat.
Vaju kotak biography of barack obama full
Barack Obama is the first Black president of the United States. Learn facts about him: his age, height, leadership legacy, quotes, family, and more.Palmer lost her election for U.S. Congress, so she tried to keep her seat in the state senate, but she did not have enough time to meet the rules of the election. Obama's team said that she could not be on the ballot, and the election rule makers agreed. Obama won the election and became an Illinois state senator.[11] He was state senator from to [12]
While he was Illinois state senator, he wrote a law that required police to keep records on the race of people they stopped.[12] The law that he wrote also forced police to videotape when they talked to people they suspect of murder.[12] He taught law part-time at the University of Chicago Law School.
Judge and political teacher Abner J. Mikva taught Obama politics and became his mentor. During his early political career, Obama would make appearances and debate on Chicago Tonight.
Obama ran for the U.S. Senate.[13] While running for Senate, John Kerry asked him to speak at the Democratic National Convention.
He spoke on television. He was a U.S. Senator from to [14]
Obama won the presidential election of [13]
and presidential campaigns
[change | change source][change | change source]
Obama's presidential campaign for the White House started in early June , when he defeated Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries.
Hillary Clinton was favored to win but Obama won many smaller state caucuses (local party elections) by having a lot of volunteers. He decided not to accept government money for his campaign so that he could accept more private money under Campaign finance reform in the United States. He raised the most amount of money ever for a presidential campaign.
[source?]
Obama's campaign theme was that he was a man of hope and change. He was also against the war in Iraq. He was in favor of giving money to American car companies. He was in favor of sending more troops to Afghanistan.
Biography of barack obama early life Barack Obama was the first African American president of the United States (–17). He oversaw the recovery of the U.S. economy (from the Great Recession of –09) and the enactment of landmark health care reform (the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act). In he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.During the campaign, some people said that Obama's friends were Tony Rezko, a landlord, and former revolutionary Bill Ayers; Obama said that they were not his friends. [source?] Obama also had trouble when his minister at church, Jeremiah Wright, was videotaped criticizing America. During the campaign, Obama said that his opponent, Republican candidate John McCain, was just like George W.
Bush, something that John McCain said was not true. He ran with Joe Biden as his candidate for Vice President.
He defeated McCain in the election on November 4 by a wide electoral majority of to , meaning that he won the most votes in enough states to send people to officially elect him. The popular vote (based on the total number of votes across the country) was closer, with Obama winning 53%, McCain 46%.
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Obama announced he was running for president again in April , when he posted a video on his website. Because he was already the president, there were very few other Democrats who tried to oppose him. He won the democratic nomination easily. Their opponents in the Republican party this time were Mitt Romney, who was running for president, and Paul Ryan, who was running for vice president.
In the election on November 6, Obama and Joe Biden defeated Romney and Ryan by a majority of to electoral votes. This meant that, even though it was still large, his majority was smaller than in In terms of the popular vote, Obama won % and Romney won %.
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See the main article: Presidency of Barack Obama
First term (–13)
[change | change source]See the main article: First inauguration of Barack Obama
Obama was first sworn in as president on January 20,
Great Recession
[change | change source]When Obama was sworn in, the United States was battling a tough recession.
He asked Congress to spend an extra $ billion ($,,,) to try to end the recession. He called the plan the stimulus bill. The stimulus bill funded many road projects, gave money to schools, gave tax credits to many Americans, and funded many science and research projects.
He continued the financial bailout that George W.
Bush started, giving billions of dollars to car companies and banks so that they would not go bankrupt. He signed an act written by Barney Frank and Chris Dodd which would regulate Wall Street (the financial industry) to try to prevent another recession like this from happening again.
Obamacare
[change | change source]Obama said he would change the health care system in the United States in order to make healthcare more affordable for Americans.
He signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare) in [15] This brought health carereform to the United States.
Nobel Peace Prize
[change | change source]Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize on October 9, [16] He noted that his efforts were humble, but he donated the prize money to several charities.
Tea Party movement
[change | change source]Though his popularity was very high (around 70% approval) when he entered office, his approval ratings fell to 45% percent during the year of He received much criticism from Republicans, conservatives, libertarians, and members of the Tea Party as they believed that the federal government was becoming too big and spending too much money, and that his programs were not the best for the country.
War in Iraq
[change | change source]Obama made a plan to slowly withdraw troops from Iraq, ending the War in Iraq by the end of , while adding more troops to Afghanistan to help the United States win the War in Afghanistan. He also decided that the United States should help in the war against Libya. He has said several times that he wants to improve U.S.
relations with the Muslim world. Obama reduced US participation in the Iraq War and continued the war on terror which resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden on May 2, Obama started a no-fly-zone policy on the Libyan civil war that ended in October with the killing of Muammar al-Gaddafi.
Economic policy
[change | change source]With rising economic deficits (the amount of money the government borrows each month) under his administration, he called for taxes to be increased on the rich.
He criticized his Republican opponents for wanting to cut welfare benefits for the poor rather than raising taxes to help pay down the debt.
LGBT rights
[change | change source]He signed the Don't Ask Don't Tell Repeal Act of in , allowing openly gay men and openly lesbian women in the armed forces.[17] On May 9, , he became the first sitting US President to openly support legalizing same-sex marriage.
Gun control
[change | change source]On December 14, , after the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut occurred, Obama had said, "We're going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics". On December 21, , Obama and his White House staff observed a moment of silence because of the school shooting in Connecticut.
Before his second term began, there has been debating of guns because of the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut that happened on December 14, , as well as shootings in the past.
re-election campaign
[change | change source]On April 4, Obama said that he would run for re-election for a second term in in a video titled "It Begins with Us" that he posted on his website and filed election papers with the Federal Election Commission.[18][19][20] He was officially nominated as his party's nominee on September 6, Mitt Romney was officially nominated as his opponent by the Republican party on August 30, While the election results were very close, Obama easily won the electoral college votes he needed to win a second term.[21] Obama and Romney spent more than $2 billion on advertising during the election campaign.[21]
On December 21, , Obama nominated John Kerry for United States Secretary of State during his second term.[22][23][24] Kerry was sworn in on February 1,
Second term ()
[change | change source]See the main article: Second inauguration of Barack Obama
Obama was inaugurated for a second term privately (only his family members could see) on January 20, , at the White House.
Biography of barack obama president: Barack Obama was the first African American president of the United States (–17). He oversaw the recovery of the U.S. economy (from the Great Recession of –09) and the enactment of landmark health care reform (the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act). In he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
The next day, January 21, , he was inaugurated again, this time in public, at the United States Capitol. This was because January 20, , was on a Sunday.
The start of his second term in had a few setbacks. With the NSA, people were upset at the Obama administration that the government was possibly listening to their phone calls. His party (the Democrats) also lost the Congressional elections.
Because of disagreements between Democrats and Republicans in Congress, neither side was getting anything done and Obama resulted in using his Executive Order (his power as president) to help reform things like the immigration system.
He visited South Africa in late June Prior to visiting South Africa, he visited Senegal.
He visited Robben Island, where Mandela was imprisoned. He did not meet with Nelson Mandela.
United States federal government shutdown
[change | change source]The United States government shutdown occurred on October 1, On October 17, , Obama signed a bill that ended the United States government shut down.
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Obama awarded several people, including former U.S. President Bill Clinton and media mogul Oprah Winfrey for the Presidential Medal of Freedom on November 20, He has awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to many people, such as Stephen Hawking, Sandra Day O'Connor, Chita Rivera, Loretta Lynn and George H.
W. Bush.
Death of Nelson Mandela
[change | change source]On December 5, , he gave a four-and-a-half-minute speech of Nelson Mandela after Mandela's death was announced. On December 9, , he departed Washington, D.C. to go to South Africa for Mandela's memorial service. On December 10, , Obama spoke at the memorial service of Nelson Mandela in Soweto, South Africa.
Minimum wage and college
[change | change source]He supported increasing the minimum wage, requiring women to be paid the same as men at the same job, and has called for the first 2 years of college to be fully government-funded for students who study full-time and get good grades.
Legalization of same-sex marriage
[change | change source]Obama supported LGBT members, and successfully convinced the courts in that same-sex marriage should be legal in the United States.[25]
Climate change
[change | change source]Obama was also worried about climate change, and promoted the Paris Agreement on climate change.
Nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court
[change | change source]After the death of Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, Obama nominated Merrick Garland to replace him on March 16, , but the nomination expired because the Senate refused to hold a vote for him.
[change | change source]
As it is not possible for a person to be president for three terms, Obama could not run for president again.
He was succeeded by Republican Donald Trump in early He left office with a 60% approval rating.[26]
Even though he is not the president anymore, Obama still owns a house in Washington, D.C.
Obama and his wife, Michelle, spend time making speeches and attending events.
Vaju kotak biography of barack obama The biography for President Obama and past presidents is courtesy of the White House Historical Association. Barack Obama served as the 44th President of the United States. His story is the American story — values from the heartland, a middle-class upbringing in a strong family, hard work and education as the means of getting ahead, and the.They also run a charity called the Obama Foundation, and own Higher Ground Productions, a company which makes movies. The company was hired by Netflix to make documentaries. One of their documentaries, American Factory, won an Academy Award for being the best documentary of [27][28]
He released his presidential memoir, A Promised Land, on November 17, [29][30]
In May , Obama strongly criticized President Donald Trump for his response to the coronavirus pandemic, saying that it is "an absolute chaotic disaster".[31]
References
[change | change source]- ↑"Birth Certificate of Barack Obama".
Department of Health, Hawaii. August 9, Archived from the original on October 14, Retrieved
- ↑"Obama Tops Public's List of Best President in Their Lifetime, Followed by Clinton, Reagan". Pew Research Center - U.S. Politics & Policy. Retrieved
- ↑"President Barack Obama".
Washington, D.C.: The White House. Archived from the original on October 26, Retrieved December 31,
- ↑Maraniss, David (August 24, ). "Though Obama had to leave to find himself, it is Hawaii that made his rise possible". The Washington Post. p.A Archived from the original on March 28, Retrieved December 31,
- ↑Nakaso, Dan (December 22, ).
"Twin sisters, Obama on parallel paths for years". The Honolulu Advertiser. p.B1. Archived from the original on January 29, Retrieved December 31,
- ↑Rudin, Ken (December 23, ). "Today's Junkie segment on TOTN: a political review Of ". Talk of the Nation (Political Junkie blog). NPR. Archived from the original on May 11, Retrieved December 31,
- ↑Von Zumbusch, Amelie.
Barack Obama: Man of Destiny. The Rosen Publishing Group page 7