Barack Hussein Obama II (US Listeni/b?'r??k hu?'se?n o?'b??m?/ b?-RAHK hoo-SAYN
oh-BAH-m?;[1][2] born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to be elected to the U.S. presidency and the first one born outside the contiguous United States. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia Univers ity and Harvard Law School, where he was president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked a s a civil rights attorney and taught constitutional law at the University of Chi cago Law School from 1992 to 2004. While serving three terms representing the 13 th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004, he ran unsuccessfully in t he Democratic primary for the United States House of Representatives in 2000 aga inst incumbent Bobby Rush. In 2004, Obama received national attention during his campaign to represent Illi nois in the United States Senate with his victory in the March Democratic Party primary, his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July, and his election to the Senate in November. He began his presidential campaign in 20 07 and, after a close primary campaign against Hillary Clinton in 2008, he won s ufficient delegates in the Democratic Party primaries to receive the presidentia l nomination. He then defeated Republican nominee John McCain in the general ele ction, and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009. Nine months after h is inauguration, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. During his first two years in office, Obama signed into law economic stimulus le gislation in response to the Great Recession in the form of the American Recover y and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauth orization, and Job Creation Act of 2010. Other major domestic initiatives in his first term included the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, often refer red to as "Obamacare"; the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection A ct; and the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010. In foreign policy, Obama e nded U.S. military involvement in the Iraq War, increased U.S. troop levels in A fghanistan, signed the New START arms control treaty with Russia, ordered U.S. m ilitary involvement in Libya in opposition to Muammar Gaddafi, and ordered the m ilitary operation that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden. In January 2011 , the Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives as the Democr atic Party lost a total of 63 seats; and, after a lengthy debate over federal sp ending and whether or not to raise the nation's debt limit, Obama signed the Bud get Control Act of 2011 and the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012.