Today in history: Barack Obama is born

(Image credit: CC BY: The White House)

last updated 8 January 2015

August 4, 1961: Barack Obama was born. He is the 44th president, serving since 2009. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama graduated from Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was president of the Harvard Law Review. He then moved to Chicago, where he had worked as a community organizer before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago from 1992 to 2004. He served three terms in the Illinois State Senate from 1997 to 2004, but in 2000 he was defeated in an attempt to win a Congressional seat.

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In his first term in office, his major domestic policy initiatives included signing the economic stimulus legislation in the form of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010 in response to the 2007–2009 recession in the United States; the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act; the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010; and the Budget Control Act of 2011. In foreign policy, Obama ended U.S. military involvement in the Iraq War, increased troop levels in Afghanistan, signed the new START arms control treaty with Russia, ordered U.S. military involvement in Libya, and ordered the military operation that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden. In May 2012, he became the first sitting U.S. president to publicly support legalizing same-sex marriage.