Barack Obama's Life
- Barack Obama was born on 4 August 1961 in Hawaii. His father was a black Kenyan and his mother a white America from Kansas. Barack Obama's father used to herd goats in Kenya but gained a scholarship to study in Hawaii.
- When Barack Obama was young his parents split up and his father returned to Kenya, whilst his mother remarried an Indonesian. The family moved to Jakarta, but it was not long before Barack Obama returned to Hawaii to live with his grandparents.
- In 1983, Obama graduated from Columbia University in political science. After a few years as a community organiser, Obama studied law at Harvard and then practised as a civil rights lawyer. Whilst he was at Harvard, Barack Obama became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review.
- Obama won a seat in the Illinois State Senate, where he served for eight years. In 2004, he became the third African American since Reconstruction to be elected to the U.S. Senate. He won as a Democrat and was sworn into office on 4 January 2005. Obama's website as US Senator for Illinois has a biography.
- Barack Obama and his wife Michelle have two daughters, Malia and Sasha.
- Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were among the front-running Democratic candidates to be President in 2008. Barack Obama's campaign for the Presidency website has his speeches, news, blog, biography and video footage.
- In January 2008 Barack Obama was the victor in Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses. CNN reported: "Among Democrats, Obama took 57 percent of the under-30 vote, according to CNN's analysis of entrance polls. Speaking to supporters, Obama called the night a "defining moment in history."
- By mid-February 2008, the race for the Democratic nomination between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton was too close to call.