The 44th President of the U.S., President Barack Obama celebrated his birthday on August 4. He was born to Barack Obama, Sr. and Stanley Ann Dunham, in Hawaii in 1961. In the Swahili language, his name means “one who is blessed”.
Obama along with his mother Ann Dunham moved to Indonesia in 1965. That was when his parents divorced and his mother married Lolo Soetoro. He was in Indonesia for four years where he attended Indonesian-language schools.
Obama is a basketball player. His critical skills earned him the nickname “O’Bomber”, in school. He now plays basketball with his security personnel in his free time. He also loves to play Scrabble and poker.
Like many other children, Obama as a child had a favorite superhero. He was fond of Spider-man and loved to collect comics of Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian.
Obama had worked at Baskin-Robbins and in construction in his teenage. He had also worked as a market researcher, a community organizer and a Civil Rights Attorney. He received his degree in law in 1991 with distinction. Followed by that, he joined as an intern at a Chicago law firm. That’s where he met Michelle Robinson, his future wife. The couple married on October 3, 1992.
Obama keeps a wooden carving on his table that depicts a hand holding an egg. This wooden carving is a Kenyan symbol that reminds one of the fragility of life. Obama believes in good luck. A Tiny Madonna and Child statue and a bracelet that belongs to an Iraqi soldier are two good luck charms he always carries with him.
Obama won the 2008 Presidential election with around 66.7 million votes and 365 electoral votes. The Times Magazine named him “Person of the year” in 2008 and he received the same honor again in 2012. President Obama has won the Grammy Award twice for Best Spoken Word Album. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 for the efforts he took to strengthen cooperation and diplomacy between people. He also holds credit for being the first American President to address the U.K. Parliament.
Obama is multilingual; he can speak Indonesian and some Spanish along with English. He is left handed and is the sixth American President after the 20th century to be left handed. He is the first American President to have a Twitter account. His Twitter account @BarackObama has more than 63 million followers. Like many, President Obama keeps checking his BlackBerry and he admits that it is his “worst habit.”
Obama has stated that Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Mahatma Gandhi are the three men who he admires the most. He loves to listen to music artists like Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Bach, Fugees, Jay Z, Rolling Stones and Stevie Wonder.
Obama would have become an architect if he had not chosen politics. Senator Keg, a particular type of beer brewed in Kenya is locally known by drinkers as “Obama beer.”
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