US President Barack Hussein Obama is the 44th President of the United States and is the first African American to hold the office. We look at his life and career in 50 pictures.
He was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 4, 1961. His father, Barack Obama snr, was a visiting student from Kenya, who met his mother Ann Dunham, a white teenager from Wichita, Kansas, shortly after arriving on the Pacific island. They married on February 2, 1961 and divorced in 1964.
A young Barack Obama is pictured on a tricycle in Hawaii, in the 1960s
Barack Obama is seen as a child with his mother Ann Dunham in an undated family snapshot from the 1960s
Barack Obama is seen with his father Barack Obama Sr in an undated family snapshot from the late 60s or early 70s. Obama's father, originally from Kenya, was killed in an car accident in Kenya in 1982 after returning to Africa.
In this photocopy of a 1969 photo released by the SDN Menteng 1 school, Barack Obama, circled in yellow, attends a graduation ceremony at the SDN Menteng 1 school in Jakarta Indonesia. He attended the school when he was a child living in Indonesia.
This 1979 photo provided by The Oahuan, the yearbook of Punahou School, shows Barack Obama in his senior picture at the Punahou School in Honolulu. Obama lived in Honolulu for most of his youth and graduated from the prestigious private school.
Barack Obama is pictured at Harvard Law School, where he was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review
6 February 1990: Barack Obama is pictured as a student at Harvard University Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Obama arrived at Harvard in the autumn of 1988 after graduating from Columbia University and spending four years as a community organiser in Chicago.
18 October 1992: Barack Obama and his bride Michelle Robinson, a fellow Harvard Law School graduate, pose on their wedding day, in Chicago, Illinois
27 July 2004: Keynote speaker Barack Obama, a candidate for the US Senate from Illinois, addresses the Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts
4 August 2004: Barack Obama blows out candles on his birthday cake at his 43rd birthday celebration with his wife Michelle and daughters Sasha and Malia, during a fundraiser in Matteson, Illinois
2 November 2004: Illinois US Senate candidate Democrat Barack Obama, his wife Michelle and their daughters Malia, 3, and Sasha, 6, celebrate at election night headquarters in Chicago. Obama faced Republican candidate Alan Keyes in the first Senate race with two African American candidates.
8 December 2004: Democratic Senator Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle get ready at their home in Chicago, Illinois. The Senator was due to give the keynote address at the Chicago Economic Club.
27 August 2006: Senator Barack Obama is dressed as a Somali elder by Sheikh Mahmed Hassan during his visit to Wajir, a rural area in northeastern Kenya, near the borders with Somalia and Ethiopia
10 February 2007: Illinois senator Barack Obama waves to the crowd with his wife Michelle and two daughters Sasha and Malia, after announcing his candidacy for the 2008 Presidential nomination at the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois
23 February 2007: Senator Barack Obama, D-Ill., puts on a cowboy hat handed to him, as the candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination leaves a rally in Austin, Texas
3 June 2007: Democratic presidential hopefuls, Senators Hillary Clinton, D-NY, and Barack Obama, D-Ill, answer a question simultaneously during the Democratic presidential primary debate hosted by Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire
16 August 2007: Senator Barack Obama drives a bumper car with his daughter Sasha at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines
3 June 2008: Michelle Obama gives her husband, Democratic presidential candidate US Senator Barack Obama, a fist-bump as a sign of support before he speaks to supporters at the Xcel Center in St Paul, Minnesota
24 July 2008: Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama waves to massive crowds as he arrives at the Victory Column in Berlin, Germany
14 August 2008: Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama body-surfs while on holiday at Sandy Beach in Honolulu, Hawaii
28 August 2008: Democratic presidential candidate, Senator Barack Obama, hugs his wife Michelle after giving his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention at Invesco Field at Mile High in Denver
28 October 2008: Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama addresses supporters in the rain at a rally in Chester, Pennsylvania
3 November 2008: Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama cries while speaking about his grandmother during a campaign rally at University North Carolina-Charlotte
10 November 2008: US President elect Barack Obama and his wife Michelle pose for photographers after being greeted by President George W Bush and First Lady Laura Bush on the South Lawn of the White House
7 January 2009: US President George W Bush stands with President-elect Barack Obama, former President George HW Bush, former President Bill Clinton and former President Jimmy Carter in the Oval Office of the White House. Bush, acting on a suggestion by Obama, invited the former Presidents and President-elect for lunch, the first time since 1981 that all living presidents have been together at the White House.
13 January 2009: President-elect Barack Obama poses for an official portrait a week before being sworn in as the nation's 44th president
20 January 2009: Barack Obama, his wife, Michelle, and their daughters, Malia and Sasha, approach the podium for his swearing-in ceremony as the 44th president of the United States on the West Front of the Capitol
20 January 2009: Barack H Obama is sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts as the 44th president of the United States on the West Front of the Capitol as his wife Michelle looks on. Obama became the first African-American to be elected to the office of President in the history of the United States.
20 January 2009: US President Barack Obama dances with his wife and First Lady Michelle Obama during the Western Inaugural Ball in Washington, DC
1 April 2009: US President Barack Obama shakes hands with a policeman outside 10 Downing Street, where he and wife Michelle met with Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his wife Sarah on the eve of the G20 Summit in London
1 April 2009: US President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, talk with Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh during an audience at Buckingham Palace in London
7 April 2009: US President Barack Obama greets troops during a visit to Camp Victory, just outside Baghdad, Iraq
14 April 2009: The Obamas' new Portuguese water dog Bo pulls away as the US President walks with daughters Malia and Sasha on the South Lawn of the White House
9 July 2009: US President Barack Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy watch as Mayara Rodrigues Tavares, a 17-year-old Brazilian delegate, passes by during the G8 Summit in L'Aquila, Italy
22 July 2009: US President Barack Obama listens a question during a news conference on health care in the East Room of the White House
5 August 2009: President Barack Obama's daughter Sasha hides behind the sofa in the Oval Office as she sneaks up on him at the end of the day
23 September 2009: President Barack Obama blocks a shot while playing basketball with personal aide Reggie Love at St Bartholomew's Church in New York
14 November 2009: US President Barack Obama, left, bows as he is greeted by Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo
4 December 2009: US President Barack Obama holds a baby after delivering remarks on the economy at Lehigh Carbon Community College in Allentown, Pennsylvania
28 May 2010: President Barack Obama picks up balls of tar resulting from the Deepwater Horizon disaster while touring the beach in Port Fourchon, Louisiana
3 December 2010: US President Barack Obama greets members of the military at a rally during an unannounced visit at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan
27 April 2011: US President Barack Obama's long form birth certificate is seen in the Briefing Room of the White House. The long form version of his birth certificate was made public after extended criticism by those who did not believe he was born in the United States.
1 May 2011: US President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and members of the national security team receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House. Obama later announced that the United States had killed Bin Laden in an operation led by US Special Forces at a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
1 May 2011: US President Barack Obama listens during one of a series of meetings discussing the mission against Osama bin Laden, in the Situation Room of the White House
5 May 2011: US President Barack Obama pauses with first responders after laying a wreath at the 9/11 Memorial at Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan
23 May 2001: US President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama drink Guinness as they meet with local residents at Ollie Hayes pub in Moneygall, Ireland, the ancestral homeland of his great-great-great grandfather
24 May 2011: US President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama meet with Prince William and Catherine, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, at Buckingham Palace
29 May 2011: US President Barack Obama surveys damage as he pays a visit to the community that was devastated by a tornado in Joplin, Missouri
23 July 2011: US President Barack Obama meets with US Speaker of the House John Boehner in the Cabinet Room at the White House. Obama summoned top lawmakers for crisis talks on averting a debt default that could send shockwaves through the fragile global economy.
2 August 2011: US President Barack Obama signs the Budget Control Act of 2011 in the Oval Office at the White House. US Senate approval on a 74 to 26 vote of the $2.1 trillion deficit-reduction plan, already passed by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, drove away the immediate spectre of a catastrophic US debt default. Obama immediately signed the bill into law, lifting the government's $14.3 trillion debt ceiling hours before the midnight deadline. But the rancorous debt and deficit battle between his Democrats and their Republican rivals left Obama politically bruised as he heads into a campaign for a second term in 2012.
He was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 4, 1961. His father, Barack Obama snr, was a visiting student from Kenya, who met his mother Ann Dunham, a white teenager from Wichita, Kansas, shortly after arriving on the Pacific island. They married on February 2, 1961 and divorced in 1964.
A young Barack Obama is pictured on a tricycle in Hawaii, in the 1960s
