Barack Hussein Obama II - born August 4, 1961 - is the 44th and current President of the United States - the first African American to hold the office. He served as the junior United States Senator from Illinois from January 2005 until he resigned after his election to the presidency in November 2008.

President Barack Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School - where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and also taught constitutional law at the University Of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. He began his run for the presidency in February 2007. After a close campaign in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries against Hillary Rodham Clinton - he won his party's nomination, becoming the first major party African American candidate for president. In the 2008 general election - he defeated Republican nominee John McCain and was inaugurated as president on January 20 - 2009.