Barack Obama

Barack Obama About

date of birth: August 4, 1961
place of birth: Honolulu, Hawaii

The only child of American Ann Dunham and Kenyan Barack Obama Senior, the current President of the United States was born in Honolulu. The only US President of African-American descent, Obama also has Irish, French and English roots.

According to Ancestry.com, Obama’s Irish ancestor, Falmouth Kearney, immigrated to the United States from County Offaly during the Great Famine of the 1840s.

After his parents divorced, Obama’s father returned to Kenya and his mother married Lolo Soetoro, whose Indonesian heritage and Muslim background highly influenced the young Obama. Soetoro and Dunham, along with Obama, relocated to Indonesia upon the completion of Soetoro’s studies in the United States, but Obama was soon sent back to Hawaii to live with his grandparents due to rising tensions in Indonesia.

After completing high school, Obama studied at Occidental College before transferring to Columbia University in New York and graduating with a degree in Political Science. Obama enrolled in Harvard University in the late eighties to complete a law degree, gaining a particular interest in civil rights law after working with low income residents in Chicago.

In 1995 Obama wrote his critically acclaimed autobiography "Dreams of My Father", detailing the impact his multicultural upbringing had on him. Though unsuccessful in the primary run for the House of Representatives in 2000, Obama gained momentum in voicing his opposition of George W. Bush’s Wars in the Middle East, and was elected to the Senate in 2004.

Obama garnered attention again when he announced his run for the Oval office, appearing on popular talk shows like "Oprah" and "Ellen." Making history in 2008, Obama was elected as the forty-fourth President of the United States, and the first African-American to ever achieve that feat. In 2009, he won the Nobel Peace Prize. Currently the incumbent Obama resides in the White House with his wife Michelle, whom he married in 1992, and their two daughters Malia and Sasha.