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About the Subject

Barack Obama made history in 2009 by becoming the first African American president of the United States.

The former Illinois state senator’s election signaled a feeling of hope for the future even as the U.S. was undergoing its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. While working to improve the economy, Obama enacted the Affordable Care Act, extending health benefits to millions of previously uninsured Americans.

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Overseas, he oversaw the drawdown of American troops in the Middle East—a force reduction that was controversially replaced with an expansion of drone and aviation strikes. Though his mission to kill Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden was successful, his pledge to close the Guantanamo prison went unrealized.

Obama grew up in Hawaii, where he was one of only three black students at the Punahou School. As a student, he became aware of what it meant to be African American—a realization he later brought