Barack Obama

Overview

Barack Obama was a major figure in American political history. First African American president, associated with major health-care reform and multiple threats before, during, and after his presidency. This entry is designed to support a public-facing biography page and AI question answering connected to the assassination-attempts explorer.

Early life

Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 4, 1961, to Barack Obama Sr., a Kenyan economist, and Stanley Ann Dunham, a white American from Kansas. His parents separated when he was two; his father returned to Kenya and his mother later remarried and moved to Indonesia, where Obama spent several years before returning to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents. He attended Punahou School on scholarship, then Occidental College for two years before transferring to Columbia University, where he graduated with a degree in political science in 1983.

Career

After college, Obama worked as a community organizer on Chicago's South Side, registering voters and developing programs for low-income residents. He attended Harvard Law School, where he became the first Black editor of the Harvard Law Review, graduating magna cum laude in 1991. He practiced civil rights law in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School for twelve years. He served in the Illinois state senate from 1997 to 2004. He delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, which made him a national figure overnight. He won a U.S. Senate seat from Illinois in November 2004 in a landslide and announced his presidential candidacy in February 2007.

Rise to prominence

Barack Obama became nationally significant through first african american u.s. president, signed the affordable care act.

Presidency & public issues

Key public issues associated with Barack Obama include Affordable Care Act, Great Recession recovery, Race and politics, Counterterrorism.

Assassination context

This individual appears in 4 incidents in the archive: Plot Against Barack Obama; Attempted Assassination of Barack Obama; Security Incident Involving Barack Obama; Attempted Assassination of Barack Obama. The primary linked event is Attempted Assassination of Barack Obama. The target survived the related event or events, or the plot did not reach the target.

Later life & death

As of this dataset, Barack Obama is living; later-life details should be updated as public information changes.

Legacy

Barack Obama's legacy is commonly discussed through the themes of Affordable Care Act, Great Recession recovery, Race and politics, and through the way the related incident shaped public memory, security practices, or political history.

Key facts

Timeline

1. 1961-08-04

   Barack Obama born

   Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii.

2. 2009-01-20

   44th President of the United States

   Barack Obama began service as 44th President of the United States.

3. 2007-02-10

   Democratic presidential candidate

   Barack Obama began service as Democratic presidential candidate.

Sources

• Barack Obama — Britannica
• Barack Obama — Miller Center