Barack H. Obama is the 44th president of the United States. He was born in Hawaii on Aug. 4, 1961. After college he moved to Chicago, where he became a community activist. Obama attended law school at Harvard, returning to Chicago as an attorney and law professor, and was elected to the Illinois State Senate in 1996. He was elected to the United States Senate in 2004. Obama, America's first black president, was elected Nov. 4, 2008, and re-elected in 2012. He and his wife, Michelle, have two daughters, Malia and Sasha.