Barack Obama on the South Side of Chicago. Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (; born August 4, 1961) is an American attorney and politician who served as the 44th President of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American to be elected to the presidency. He previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois (2005–2008). Obama was born in 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii, two years after the territory was admitted to the Union as the 50th state. After graduating from Columbia University in 1983, he worked as a community
European foreign policy of the Barack Obama administration Ottoman Empire as genocide, he declined to do so on his visit to Turkey, instead using the Armenian term Meds Yeghern. He reinforced the fact that he still believes the killings amount to genocide when asked at a joint press conference with President Abdullah Gül. During his visit, Obama urged the governments of Turkey and Armenia to work together to normalize relations and reopen the border. During the 2008 United States presidential election both (final) nominees for president, U.S. senator Barack Obama and U.S. senator John McCain, did offer backing to Ukraine's January 2008 membership proposal of NATO. Two weeks