A member of the Democratic Party , he was the first African American to be elected to the presidency. He previously served as a U.
Obama was born in Honolulu , Hawaii. After graduating from Columbia University in , he worked as a community organizer in Chicago. After graduating, he became a civil rights attorney and an academic, teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from to He represented the 13th district for three terms in the Illinois Senate from to , when he ran for the U. He received national attention in with his March primary win, his well-received July Democratic National Convention keynote address , and his landslide November election to the Senate.
In , he was nominated for president a year after his campaign began and after a close primary campaign against Hillary Clinton. Nine months later, he was named the Nobel Peace Prize laureate. During his first two years in office, Obama signed many landmark bills into law. After a lengthy debate over the national debt limit, he signed the Budget Control and the American Taxpayer Relief Acts. In foreign policy, he increased U.
He also ordered the military operations that resulted in the deaths of Osama bin Laden and suspected Yemeni Al-Qaeda operative Anwar al-Awlaki. After winning re-election by defeating Republican opponent Mitt Romney , Obama was sworn in for a second term in His administration filed briefs that urged the Supreme Court to strike down same-sex marriage bans as unconstitutional United States v.
Windsor and Obergefell v. Hodges ; same-sex marriage was fully legalized in after the Court ruled that a same-sex marriage ban was unconstitutional in Obergefell. He advocated for gun control in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting , indicating support for a ban on assault weapons, and issued wide-ranging executive actions concerning climate change and immigration.
