On August 4, 1961, Barack Obama was born on the small island of Honolulu, Hawaii.  

His mother was from Kansas and his father from Kenya. He was surrounded by the ocean through his early years. 

After his father left he grew up with his grandparents and mom. They ingrained generosity and optimism in his heart.

While living with his grandparents, Obama enrolled in Punahou Academy a prep school. He excelled in basketball and graduated with academic honors in 1979. As one of only three Black students at the school, he became conscious of racism and what it meant to be African American.

He studied at multiple colleges but most notably at Columbia University. Then a few years later graduated from Harvard. This was where he impressed many people and made himself known.

After working his way through college at Harvard and other schools, Obama moved to Chicago, where he worked with a group of churches to help rebuild communities damaged by the closure of local steel plants.

Right after college, he got involved with a few law firms. In the midst of his lawyer experiences, Obama met Michelle, and the two got married in 1992.

After proving to himself how much he could accomplish, he set higher goals than just law firms; he started to public speak. If not him, who?

Obama's first taste of politics took place in the Illinois state senate as a Democrat in 1996.

By this time, he and Michelle had their first daughter, Malia.

 As the equal man he was, a lot of his decisions relied on both republican and democratic views. He has always thought that you should always try and make everyone happy. He starts to prove this in his time in the senate. 

Other ways he started to show what he believed, was by expressing his views on things like stem cell research, abortion, gun control, school vouchers, and tax cuts at multiple conventions. He needed to show his side of the idea to prove what he thought was right. 

These were pretty common views among democrats.  What made Obama stand out was that he made his ideas appeal to different sectors of America, gave hard evidence of why his opinions should be implemented, and provided the pluses and negatives to each political side. 

After years in the Senate, on February 2007, Obama made headlines when he announced his candidacy for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. This was his chance to represent the largely underrepresented African American community of America.

The battle was first between him and Hilary Clinton. But once he had become the official Democratic nominee, it was him up against the republican John Mcain. 

Obama overwhelmingly won the black and Latino vote but let the older folk's vote slip. Although this wasn't ideal, it didn't even come close to affecting the results. Barack Obama would be sworn in as the 44th president of the United States of America. 

 He took office at a moment of crisis unlike any America had seen in decades. Just to list a few obstacles, the nation at war, a planet in peril, the American Dream itself threatened by the worst economic calamity since the Great Depression.

It was Obama's time to reform the country. In his first hundred days, he expanded healthcare insurance, provided legal protection for women seeking equal pay, started plans to buy U.S. banks' toxic assets, etc.