Ba r a c k Ob ama ( b o r nAugust 4, 1961) is the 44th andcurrent President of the UnitedStates. He is the first AfricanAmerican to hold the office.

Obama previously served asa United States Senator fromIllinois, from January 2005until he resigned after his election to the presidency in November 2008.

A native of Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of ColumbiaUniversity and Harvard Law School, where he was the president of theHarvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago beforeearning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago andtaught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from1992 to 2004.

Obama served three terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004.Following an unsuccessful bid against aDemocratic incumbent for a seat in the U.S.

House of Representatives in 2000, he ranfor United States Senate in 2004. Severalevents brought him to national attentionduring the campaign, including his victoryin the March 2004 Democratic primaryand his keynote address at the DemocraticNational Convention in July 2004. He wonelection to the U.S. Senate in November2004. His presidential campaign began inFebruary 2007, and after a close campaign in the 2008 Democratic Partypresidential primaries against Hillary Rodham Clinton, he won his party’snomination. In the 2008 general election, he defeated Republican nomineeJohn McCain and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009.

As president, Obama signed economic stimulus legislation in theform of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in February 2009.

Other domestic policy initiatives include the Patient Protection andAffordable Care Act, a major piece of health care reform legislationwhich he signed into law in March 2010, and the Dodd-Frank WallStreet Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which forms part of hisfinancial regulatory reform efforts, which he signed in July 2010. Inforeign policy, Obama gradually withdrew combat troops from Iraq,increased troop levels in Afghanistan, and signed an arms control treatywith Russia. On October 8, 2009, Barack Obama was named the 2009Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Personal lifeObama tried to quit smoking several times over the years and hasused nicotine replacement therapy. In June 2010, during a congratulatoryphone call to president-elect Benigno Aquino of the Philippines, Obamatold Aquino that he had quit and would offer advice on how to stop smokingwhen Aquino was himself ready for that step.