Barack Obama's political career kicked off in the Illinois State Senate, evolved into a two-term presidency

Barack Obama was the 44th President of the United States, serving from 2009 until 2017. The former president was born on Aug. 4, 1961, in Honolulu. His parents, Barack H. Obama Sr. and Stanley Ann Dunham, divorced when Obama was 2 years old. 

Obama's mother married a man from Indonesia, where the young boy spent much of his earliest years before returning to Honolulu to live with his grandparents. 

Obama attended Occidental College in Los Angeles for two years before he transferred to Columbia University to study political science and international relations. He later went to Harvard Law School in 1988. 

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After his first year of school, he began working at a law firm in Chicago, Sidley & Austin, where he met his future wife Michelle. The two got married in 1992 and welcomed two children together, Malia and Natasha "Sasha."

Obama's political tenure began in 1996, when he was elected to the Illinois Senate. In 2004, he was elected to the U.S. Senate, and gave the highly anticipated keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. 

In 2007, Obama announced that he would be running for president. He secured the Democratic nomination against former Republican Senator John McCain. Obama ran with the slogan "Change we can believe in."

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Obama defeated McCain and became the 44th President of the United States, the first African American elected to the position. He was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2009.

After four years as president, he ran for a second term. In 2012, he was elected over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. With the conclusion of his second term in office, he delivered his farewell address to the nation on Jan. 10, 2017, from Chicago. 

Before, during and after his eight years as president, Obama penned four novels. His first, "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance" was published in 1995. He later published "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream" in 2006. 

In 2010, his book "Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters" was released. "A Promised Land," by Obama, hit bookshelves in 2020.