Former President Barack Obama headlines a Cleveland rally to energize Democrats ahead of a close midterm election. Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States, broke barriers as the first African-American president and implemented significant healthcare reforms during his tenure. Obama was inaugurated in January 2009, as the first African American mixed-race president. As president, he slowly ended US participation in the Iraq War, having prepared the country to defend itself. The al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden was killed while Obama was in office. Barack Obama was the 44th president of the United States, elected in November 2008 and holding office for two terms. He was born in Hawaiʻi on August 4, 1961, to a mother from Kansas and a father from Kenya, and raised with the help of his grandparents. Barack Hussein Obama II[a] (born August 4, 1961) is an American retired 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 serve as president. President Obama announced plans to normalize foreign relations with Cuba in conjunction with President Castro, including reopening the U.S. Embassy in Havana in July 2015. The First Family visited Cuba in March 2016, making President Obama the first sitting President to visit the nation in 90 years. Post-Presidency Barack Obama was the 44th president of the United States, elected in November 2008 and holding office for two terms. Barack Obama 's tenure as the 44th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2009, and ended on January 20, 2017. Obama, a Democrat from Illinois, took office after defeating the Republican nominee John McCain in the 2008 presidential election. We talked about everything from faith and fatherhood to race, power, friendship, and what it means to grow up. More than anything, these conversations reminded me why I love reading in the first. As President Obama has said, the change we seek will take longer than one term or one presidency. Real change—big change—takes many years and requires each generation to embrace the obligations and opportunities that come with the title of Citizen.