Barack Obama, who was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, is the 44th President of the United States. He served two terms from 2009 to 2017 and was the first African-American president in U.S. history. Obama was born on August 4, 1961, to a Kenyan father and an American mother. He attended Harvard Law School and worked as a civil rights lawyer before entering politics. He was elected to the Illinois State Senate in 1996 and to the U.S. Senate in 2004. In 2008, he was elected President of the United States.