Barack Obama defied all odds to become the president of the United States. He is arguably one of the greatest and most popular presidents of the United States.
Here are ten things about Obama that you might not know about;
1. Date of birth
Barack Hussein Obama the second was born on Aug. 4, 1961, in Honolulu and his first name ‘Barack is derrived from Swahili meaning ‘blessed one’.
2. Parents
Barack Obama is African-American and his father, Barack Hussein Obama Senior was from Kenya and his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was from Kansas.
3. Early life
Obama’s parents divorced and his mother got married to another man from Indonesia. When he was 6 years he lived with is step father in Indonesia up to when he was 10, in 1971, when he moved back to Hawaii and lived with his maternal grandparents.
4. Schooling and education
Obama attended Occidental College in Los Angeles for two years and then transferred to Columbia University in New York where he graduated with a degree in political science. He is also a graduate of the prestigious Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he graduated magna cum laude. Obama became the first African-American editor of the Harvard Law Review.
5. Marriage with Mitchelle
Obama got married to Mitchelle in 1992, who by then was known as Mitchelle Robinson. She is also a Harvard Law School Graduate and the two met while at a law firm in Chicago where she was Obama’s mentor.
6. Children
The two have been blessed with two daughters, Malia and Sasha.
7. Work before being POTUS
His journey in politics started by becoming a Illinois state senator. However, Obama worked as a civil rights attorney, community organizer, lecturer and professor before he became the senator. As a senator, he sponsored and led the passage of Illinois’ first racial-profiling law, which requires the police to videotape homicide interrogations.
8. Ancestral home
Obama’s father came from Kenya in present day Siaya county, specifically Alego Kogelo. His grandmother was called Mama Sarah Obama and she died in 2020. There is a school that has been named in honor of Obama in his father’s village called Senator Obama Kogelo Secondary School.
9. Becoming US President
Obama formally announced his campaign to run for presidency in 2007 and was elected president in November 2008 and served as the 44th president of the United States for two terms.
10. Bad habit
It is rumored that he is a smoker.
