Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln Biography : 16th American President 1861-1865
Famous for : Leading the USA through the American Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation (helping to stop slavery), and for being assassinated by actor John Wilkes Booth.
Lincoln details : Born - Hardin County, Kentucky, USA, February 12, 1809 / Died - Washington, D.C., April 15, 1865 United States of America
Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth president of the United States and served as president from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. He is best known for his determination and his leadership during the American Civil War and the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation that helped free the slaves of the South. His Gettysburg Address speech is one of the most famous speeches in American History.

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809 in a log cabin in Kentucky. He spent his childhood working on the family farm and walking two miles to school when time permitted. Although he learned the basics of reading, writing, and mathematics in the schoolhouse, he later credited most of his knowledge to borrowed books.

The Lincoln family moved from Kentucky to Indiana where his mother fell ill and died from disease soon thereafter. A year later Lincoln's father returned to Kentucky and brought back a widow by the name of Sarah Bush Johnson who Lincoln would later refer to as "my angel mother". As Lincoln grew, he began working for nearby neighbors, eventually landing a job with the local general store. It was while working for the store that Lincoln was able to travel down river with a flatboat and saw his first glimpse of a city: New Orleans.

Soon after, Lincoln's father moved the family to Illinois where young Lincoln was once again put to work building fences for both his family and others. Shortly after establishing their property, sickness spread in the region and the Lincoln family moved again. This time Lincoln stayed in Illinois and eventually landed a job for a man named Denton Offutt. It was with him that Lincoln was given the opportunity to prove his skills as not only a manager but as a businessman. Impressed with Lincoln's skills, Offutt put Lincoln in charge of a boat of produce headed to New Orleans and eventually placed him in charge of his store and mill in the southern city. Supposedly it was during his time in New Orleans that Lincoln first became aware of the seriousness of the slave trade.

One year later Abraham Lincoln moved back up to Illinois. As a result of his social connections and work, decided to run for the Illinois General Assembly. He lost the election but won leadership over an Illinois militia. Although he never saw combat, he enjoyed the position all the same.

Two years later, in 1834, Lincoln ran for and won a seat on the Illinois state legislature. At the same time Lincoln began teaching himself law and was admitted to the bar in 1837. That same year he moved to Springfield Illinois and started practicing law with a man named John T. Stuart. His power in the courtroom boosted his growing reputation as a community leader and dedicated defender of justice.

In 1842 Licoln married a woman from a prominent Kentucky family. Mary Todd and Abraham Lincoln married on November 4, 1842 and eventually had four sons, only one of which survived to adulthood.

Lincoln served four terms in the Illinois House of Representatives and became leader of the Whig party in Illinois in 1837. He ran for and won a seat on the U.S. House of Representatives in 1846, beginning his political career in the federal government. Two years later he clashed heads with prominent leaders in government and he declined to run again. Instead, Lincoln decided to focus on his law career back in Illinois.

It wasn't until 1854 that Abraham Lincoln joined the fledgling political movement called the Republican Party and in 1858 accepted the Republican nomination for a seat in the Senate. Although he lost the race, his speeches and eloquence earned him a following. As a result of his popularity, Lincoln was chosen as an underdog candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. Through strategic campaigning by party leaders (very little was done by Lincoln himself) and focused energy in the North, Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election to become the 16th President of the United States. The win made Lincoln the first Republican president.

Lincoln's run for president created controversy in the South where his opponents threatened that their states would leave the Union should Lincoln win. The secession of seven southern states, led by South Carolina, happened before Lincoln took office. They declared themselves the Confederate States of America and established themselves as a government before Lincoln's inauguration.

Abraham Lincoln was sworn into office in March of 1861. One month later, in April 1861, the Union of the northern states was attacked by the Confederates, thus beginning the fight that would lead to the American Civil War. Tensions rose and fighting continued, mostly over Lincoln's pursuit to abolish slavery in the South. In July of 1862 Congress passed the Second Confiscation Act which, in conjunction with Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, helped to support Lincoln's fight against slavery. Lincoln later passed the Thirteenth Amendment that permanently abolished slavery.

According to Abe Lincoln, the Civil War was more about protecting the Union than it was about slavery, but Lincoln quickly became known for his cause to free the Southern slaves. Fighting escalated and Lincoln took as much control as he could over the defense of the Union and the reclamation of the South. After the Battle of Gettysburg, Lincoln proved his eloquence once again with his famous speech, the Gettysburg Address, in dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg.

On April 9, 1865 the Civil War ended with General Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. Only a few days later on April 14, 1865, while watching a play at Ford's Theatre with his wife, Lincoln was assassinated. John Wilkes Booth jumped onto the balcony in which the President was seated and shot him in the head. Lincoln was pronounced dead nine hours later after laying in a coma across the street.

Abraham Lincoln was memorialized through monuments and names. Everything from cars to companies have taken the name Lincoln to honor the president and many cities across the US have also taken on his name. His face appears on the $5 USD bill and the penny. Memorials dot the nation and range from his face engraved at Mt. Rushmore to a National Monument in Washington D.C.



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Bill Clinton Biography (William Jefferson Clinton)

42nd President of the United States of America
Famous for : Popular American President (42nd), Served two terms as president and was impeached (Monica Lewinski scandal).
Clinton details : Born - August 19, 1946 Arkansas, United States / Lives - USA
Bill Clinton served as the 42nd President of the United States of America. Before becoming president he served 5 terms as the governor of Arkansas. Clinton was a member of the Democratic Party and was a very popular president, with advances in the areas of education, jobs, and the environment domestically while encouraging peace talks internationally with the Northern Island and Palestinian conflicts. President Clinton's achievements were overshadowed by the Monica Lewinski scandal where he had sexual relations with a White House intern and was impeached, yet later acquitted by the Senate. Clinton's popularity remained high even after the Lewinsky controversy and was one of the most popular American presidents upon leaving office.

President Clinton was born as William Jefferson Blythe III on the 19th of August, 1946 in Hope, Arkansas. His father (William Jefferson Blythe, Jr) was a traveling salesman that was killed in a vehicle accident before he was born.

Clinton's grandfather James Elridge Cassidy was a major influence on the young future president. Whilst living with his grandparents, Bill would go to work with his Papaw at his two jobs, which included a nighttime security position at a local sawmill and the running of a small grocery store. During these times his grandfather would share his life experience with young Billy.

In the south of the United States there were major problems with racism and segregation was used to keep blacks away from whites. With a regular stream of black customers to his grandfather's grocery store, Clinton saw that his grandfather treated them the same as he treated his white customers. Both his grandfather and grandmother (Edith Grisham Cassidy) were against the unfair segregation laws and the rampant racism that was an accepted part of life at the time. Bill Clinton saw the respect that his grandparents gave to African Americans as a normal way to treat all people, even though it was a very unusual way of thinking. Clinton was one of the few white boys of his small town that would play with black children. These early experiences must have played a part in his later thinking, where he was called the first black American president (because of his empathy towards all people, regardless of skin color).

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Bill Gates Biography (William Henry Gates III)

Bill Gates is one of the most influential people in the world. He is cofounder of one of the most recognized brands in the computer industry with nearly every desk top computer using at least one software program from Microsoft. According to the Forbes magazine, Bill Gates is the richest man in the world and has held the number one position for many years.

Gates was born and grew up in Seattle, Washington USA. His father, William H. Gates II was a Seattle attorney and his mother, Mary Maxwell Gates was a school teacher and chairperson of the United Way charity. Gates and his two sisters had a comfortable upbringing, with Gates being able to attend the exclusive secondary "Lakeside School".

Bill Gates started studying at Harvard University in 1973 where he spent time with Paul Allen. Gates and Allen worked on a version of the programming language BASIC, that was the basis for the MITS Altair (the first microcomputer available). He did not go on to graduate from Harvard University as he left in his junior year to start what was to become the largest computer software company in the world; Microsoft Corporation.

Bill Gates and the Microsoft Corporation
"To enable people and businesses throughout the world to realize their full potential." Microsoft Mission Statement
After dropping out of Harvard Bill Gates and his partner Paul Allen set about revolutionizing the computer industry. Gates believed there should be a computer on every office desk and in every home.

In 1975 the company Micro-soft was formed, which was an abbreviation of microcomputer software. It soon became simply "Microsoft"® and went on to completely change the way people use computers.

Microsoft helped to make the computer easier to use with its developed and purchased software, and made it a commercial success. The success of Microsoft began with the MS-DOS computer operating system that Gates licensed to IBM. Gates also set about protecting the royalties that he could acquire from computer software by aggressively fighting against all forms of software piracy, effectively creating the retail software market that now exists today. This move was quite controversial at the time as it was the freedom of sharing that produced much innovation and advances in the newly forming software industry. But it was this stand against software piracy, that was to be central in the great commercial success that Microsoft went on to achieve.

Bill Gates retired as Microsoft CEO in 2008.

Bill Gates Criticism
With his great success in the computer software industry also came many criticisms. With his ambitious and aggressive business philosophy, Gates or his Microsoft lawyers have been in and out of courtrooms fighting legal battles almost since Microsoft began.

The Microsoft monopoly sets about completely dominating every market it enters through either acquisition, aggressive business tactics or a combination of them. Many of the largest technology companies have fought legally against the actions of Microsoft, including Apple Computer, Netscape, Opera, WordPerfect, and sun Microsystems.

Bill Gates Net Worth
With an estimated wealth of $53 billion in 2006, Bill Gates is the richest man in the world and he should be starting to get used to the number spot as he has been there from the mid-ninties up until now. The famous investor Warren Buffett is gaining on Gates though with an estimated $46 billion in 2006.

Microsoft hasn't just made Bill Gates very wealthy though. According to the Forbes business magazine in 2004 Paul Allen, Microsoft cofounder was the 5th richest man in the world with an estimated $21 billion. While Bill Gates' long time friend and Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer was the 19th richest man in the world at $12.4 billion.

See more information the Bill Gates Net Worth page.

Bill Gates Philanthropy
Being the richest man in the world has also enabled Gates to create one of the world's largest charitable foundations. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has an endowment of more than $28 billion, with donations totaling more than $1 billion every year. The foundation was formed in 2000 after merging the "Gates Learning Foundation" and "William H. Gates Foundation". Their aim is to "bring innovations in health and learning to the global community".

Bill Gates continues to play a very active role in the workings of the Microsoft Company, but has handed the position of CEO over to Steve Ballmer. Gates now holds the positions of "Chairman" and "Chief Software Architect". He has started that he plans to take on fewer responsibilities at Microsoft and will eventually devote all his time to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

In 2006, the second richest man in the world, Warren Buffett pledged to give much of his vast fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Bill Gates Receives a KBE
In March 2005 William H. Gates received an "honorary" knighthood from the queen of England. Gates was bestowed with the KBE Order (Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) for his services in reducing poverty and improving health in the developing countries of the world.
After the privately held ceremony in Buckingham Palace with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Gates commented on the recognition..
"I am humbled and delighted. I am particularly pleased that this honor helps recognize the real heroes our foundation (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) supports to improve health in poor countries. Their incredible work is helping ensure that one day all people, no matter where they are born, will have the same opportunity for a healthy life, and I'm grateful to share this honor with them."

The KBE Order of the British Empire is the second highest Order given out, but it is only an honorary knighthood as only citizens that are British or a part of the Commonwealth receive the full Order. This means that Gates does not become Sir Bill Gates.

Bill Gates lives near Lake Washington with his wife Melinda French Gates and their three children. Interests of Gates include reading, golf and playing bridge.



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Wong Fei-Hung: The True Story

Wong Fei-Hung was born in 1847, and passed away in 1924. He was a martial arts master, teacher, healer, and revolutionary. He would protect and help those who were weak and defenseless. Wong Kay-Ying was his father, and he was a physician and great martial arts master also, and part of a group known as the "Ten Tigers of Kwantung," and he and his son lived in the city of Canton. Wong Kay-Ying's famous medical clinic was Po Chi Lam, and Wong Fei-Hung was there assisting his father.
He learned traditional Chinese medicine, and also learned many important values such as generosity and compassion. Wong Kay-Ying always treated a patient, even if he or she was a complete jerk or was poor. He would also secretly treat revolutionaries who were the resistance against the corrupt Ch'ing Dynasty. The Ch'ing Dynasty consisted of Manchu emperors, who had conquered China from there home in Manchuria. They were foreign invaders to the southern Chinese.
The southern Shaolin Temple in Fukien was a place where revolutionaries would go to train to fight against the Manchus. The temple was destroyed in 1734, but the few monks and students who escaped traveled throughout China to teach their skills. Some styles such as Wing Chun (Bruce Lee's original style) and Hung Gar Kung Fu (Wong Fei-Hung's style) emerged. The creator of Hung Gar was Hung Hei-Kwun (another martial arts master that was portrayed by Jet Li in New Legend of Shaolin). He was a Fukien tea merchant. Wong Fei-Hung's martial arts training began when he met with his father's teacher, Luk Ah Choi. Luk Ah Choi taught Wong Fei-Hung the basics of Hung Gar. After, Wong Kay-Ying took over his son's training. By his early 20's, Wong Fei-Hung had made a name for himself as a dedicated physician and a martial arts prodigy. In addition to becoming a master of hung gar, he created the tiger-crane form and added fighting combinations now known as the "nine special fists." Wong Fei-Hung was also skilled with many weapons, especially the long wooden staff and the southern tiger fork. One occasion where he utilised his skill with the staff was when he defeated a thirty-man gang on the docks of Canton. He also protected the weak and poor from both criminal gangs and government forces. However, his life was not all great joy and triumphs. Wong Fei-Hung's son, Wong Hawn-Sum, followed his father's foot steps by protecting the weak and poor of Canton. Unfortunately, he was killed in the 1890's after being gunned down by the drug gang Dai Fin Yee. After this tragedy, Wong Fei-Hung vowed never to teach his remaining 9 sons martial arts, unless they were targets themselves. Also, Wong Fei-Hung's first three wives died young, and after, decided to live the rest of his life alone. But in 1903, during an outdoor martial arts demonstration, he met a 16 year old girl named Mok Gwai Lan, and asked for her hand in marriage. She was also a skilled martial artist who taught all of the women's classes, and even taught some of the men's classes, which was rare since hardly any women mastered kung fu at the time. In 1924, Wong Fei-Hung died peacefully, a happy and humble man. Wong Fei-Hung is truly a hero of China. A hero is somebody noted for feats of courage. A hero does righteous things not for money, not for any other venal motivations except, for the benefit of everybody else.

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Tz'u-hsi or Cixi: The Dowager Empress of China

Tzu-Hsi (pronounced "Tsoo Shee"), or Cixi, was one of the most formidable women in modern history. She was famed for her beauty and charm. She was either a great friend or terrible enemy. She was power hungry, ruthless and profoundly skilled in court politics. She would rise from a middle class family to a dowager empress affecting Chinese life forever.

She was born on November 29, 1835. Her given name was Yehonala. She was born to parents of the middle ranks of Manchu society. By the time she turned 17, she was one of the concubines of the Emperor Hsien-Feng. "Tzu-Hsi", meaning kindly and virtuous, was her court name. When the emperor would chose to sleep with her, she would be escorted to his room by eunuchs and left naked at the foot of the bed. This was done in order to insure no weapons were brought into his room. The emperor had many wives and concubines, but only Tzu-Hsi gave him a son. Upon the birth of their son, she immediately moved up in the court and upon the death of her husband she was given the title of Empress of the Western Palace. Tzu-Hsi was now the dowager empress.

However, her relations with the Emperor were never that fulfilling. According to Wu, a noted Chinese historian, the relations between the two were never anything but strained. She resented all attempts on his part to exercise real power. Their fights were always a struggle for power between them. When the Emperor died in 1861, her son, Chih, became the Emperor. She was one of the eight regents named by the emperor to rule during Tung Chih's youth, since he was only 5 years old when he took the throne. The other seven regents could have removed her from power, but she had allies. With the support of Jung Lu and his banner men, revolutionary eunuchs, the empress seized control of the government.

However, she still could not rule openly; she had to rule through her son. When Chih turned 17, his mother's reign had come to an end. She selected a wife and four concubines for him, supposedly to keep him so busy that she could rule for him. After a few years, the emperor died of venereal disease in 1875 and Tzu-Hsi became ruler once again. However, the empress still was not totally free to rule, for her son's favorite concubine was pregnant and if she delivered a boy, the boy would be the new emperor and his mother dowager empress. Mysteriously, the concubine died before giving birth. Many historians conjecture that this was done at the request of Tzu-Hsi, while others simply believe that she was mentally unstable and took her own life.

The Boxer Rebellion of 1900 was a key turning point of her reign. The Boxer Rebellion was named after the secret society of the "Righteous and Harmonious Fists" who were poor Chinese who blamed Westerners and their imperialism for their poor standing of living. First organized in 1898, they may have been tacitly supported by Tzu-Hsi's government. Rising in rebellion in early 1900, the empress and her government both helped and hindered the revolt. The Boxers attacked Western missionaries and merchants, as well as the compound in Peking where foreigners lived, beginning a siege which lasted eight weeks. On August 14th the 19,000 troops of the allied armies of the Western imperialist Powers captured Peking and ended the siege. Tzu-Hsi decided to flee the city with the emperor. The Boxer Rebellion was over; at least 250 foreigners had been killed and China had to accept a humiliating peace settlement.

In 1901, she returned to the city with a whole new outlook. She was now in favor of modernizing China and making moral and social reforms. One of her major reforms was to outlaw slicing, a practice of killing people with thousands of small cuts. The empress even promised the people a constitution and representative government. However, this was too little too late.

In 1908, Tzu-Hsi suffered a stroke and, realizing she was dying, she began to think about who she wanted to succeed her. She chose her three year old nephew, P'u Yi. Upon her death she was buried in splendor, covered in diamonds. In 1928, revolutionaries dynamited her tomb and looted it while desecrating her body.

Tzu-Hsi's legacy is clearly an important one. Whether the people liked her or not does not take away the pivotal role she played in the history of China. During her life in politics, Tzu-Hsi was clever and masterful. Her narrow-mindedness and ultra-conservatism in government policy delayed what China needed to do to keep pace with the rest of the world in the late 1800's. By the time she realized, it was too late. Therefore, many historians believe that Tzu-Hsi's success in the politics of her country helped put an end to any realistic hope of a modernized imperial China.

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Bruce Lee

Actor, martial arts expert. Born Lee Jun Fan, on November 27, 1940, in San Francisco, California. His father, a Hong Kong opera singer, moved with his wife and three children to the United States in 1939; his fourth child, a son, was born while he was on tour in San Francisco. Lee’s mother called him “Bruce,” which means “strong one” in Gaelic. Young Bruce appeared in his first film at the age of three months, when he served as the stand-in for an American baby in Golden Gate Girl.

In 1941, the Lees moved back to Hong Kong, then occupied by the Japanese. Apparently a natural in front of the camera, Bruce Lee appeared in roughly 20 films as a child actor, beginning in 1946. He also studied dance, once winning a cha-cha competition. As a teenager, he became a member of a Hong Kong street gang, and in 1953 began studying kung fu to sharpen his fighting skills. In 1959, after Lee got into trouble with the police for fighting, his mother sent him back to the U.S. to live with family friends outside Seattle, Washington.

Lee finished high school in Edison, Washington, and subsequently enrolled as a philosophy major at the University of Washington. He also got a job teaching the Wing Chun style of martial arts that he had learned in Hong Kong to his fellow students and others. Through his teaching, Lee met Linda Emery, whom he married in 1964. By that time, Lee had opened his own martial arts school in Seattle. He and Linda soon moved to California, where Lee opened two more schools in Los Angeles and Oakland. At his schools, Lee taught mostly a style he called Jeet Kune Do.

Lee gained a measure of celebrity with his role in the television series The Green Hornet, which aired from 1966 to 1967. In the show, which was based on a 1930s radio program, the small, wiry Lee displayed his acrobatic and theatrical fighting style as the Hornet’s loyal sidekick, Kato. He went on to make guest appearances in such TV shows as Ironside and Longstreet, while his most notable role came in the 1969 film Marlowe, starring James Garner. Confronted with the dearth of meaty roles and the prevalence of stereotypes regarding actors of Asian heritage, Lee left Los Angeles for Hong Kong in 1971, with his wife and two children (Brandon, born in 1965, and Shannon, born in 1967).

Back in the city where he had grown up, Lee signed a two-film contract. Fists of Fury (its U.S. title) was released in late 1971, featuring Lee as a vengeful fighter chasing the villains who had killed his kung-fu master. Combining his smooth Jeet Kune Do athleticism with the high-energy theatrics of his performance in The Green Hornet, Lee was the charismatic center of the film, which set new box office records in Hong Kong. Those records were broken by Lee’s next film, The Chinese Connection (1972), which, like Fists of Fury, received poor reviews from critics when they were released in the U.S.

By the end of 1972, Lee was a major movie star in Asia. He had founded his own production company, Concord Pictures, and had released his first directorial feature, Way of the Dragon. Though he had not yet gained stardom in America, he was poised on the brink with his second directorial feature and first major Hollywood project, Enter the Dragon.

On July 20, 1973, just one month before the premiere of Enter the Dragon, Bruce Lee died in Hong Kong at the age of 32. The official cause of his sudden and utterly unexpected death was a brain edema, found in an autopsy to have been caused by a strange reaction to a prescription painkiller he was reportedly taking for a back injury. Controversy surrounded Lee’s death from the beginning, as some claimed he had been murdered. He was also widely believed to have been cursed, a conclusion driven by Lee’s obsession with his own early death. (The tragedy of the so-called curse was compounded in 1993, when Brandon Lee was killed under similarly mysterious circumstances during the filming of The Crow. The 28-year-old actor was fatally shot with a gun that supposedly contained blanks but somehow had a live round lodged deep within its barrel.)

With the posthumous release of Enter the Dragon, Lee’s status as a film icon was confirmed. The film went on to gross a total of over $200 million, and Lee’s legacy created a whole new breed of action hero—a mold filled with varying degrees of success by such actors as Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal, and Jackie Chan.

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Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama was born Aug. 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii. His father, Barack Obama, Sr., was born of Luo ethnicity in Nyanza Province, Kenya. He grew up herding goats with his own father, who was a domestic servant to the British. Although reared among Muslims, Obama, Sr., became an atheist at some point.

Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, grew up in Wichita, Kansas. Her father worked on oil rigs during the Depression. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he signed up for service in World War II and marched across Europe in Patton’s army. Dunham’s mother went to work on a bomber assembly line. After the war, they studied on the G. I. Bill, bought a house through the Federal Housing Program, and moved to Hawaii.

Meantime, Barack’s father had won a scholarship that allowed him to leave Kenya pursue his dreams in Hawaii. At the time of his birth, Obama’s parents were students at the East–West Center of the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Obama’s parents separated when he was two years old and later divorced. Obama’s father went to Harvard to pursue Ph. D. studies and then returned to Kenya.

His mother married Lolo Soetoro, another East–West Center student from Indonesia. In 1967, the family moved to Jakarta, where Obama’s half-sister Maya Soetoro–Ng was born. Obama attended schools in Jakarta, where classes were taught in the Indonesian language.

Four years later when Barack (commonly known throughout his early years as "Barry") was ten, he returned to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents, Madelyn and Stanley Dunham, and later his mother (who died of ovarian cancer in 1995).

He was enrolled in the fifth grade at the esteemed Punahou Academy, graduating with honors in 1979. He was only one of three black students at the school. This is where Obama first became conscious of racism and what it meant to be an African–American.

In his memoir, Obama described how he struggled to reconcile social perceptions of his multiracial heritage. He saw his biological father (who died in a 1982 car accident) only once (in 1971) after his parents divorced. And he admitted using alcohol, marijuana and cocaine during his teenage years.

After high school, Obama studied at Occidental College in Los Angeles for two years. He then transferred to Columbia University in New York, graduating in 1983 with a degree in political science.

After working at Business International Corporation (a company that provided international business information to corporate clients) and NYPIRG, Obama moved to Chicago in 1985. There, he worked as a community organizer with low-income residents in Chicago’s Roseland community and the Altgeld Gardens public housing development on the city’s South Side.

It was during this time that Obama, who said he "was not raised in a religious household," joined the Trinity United Church of Christ. He also visited relatives in Kenya, which included an emotional visit to the graves of his father and paternal grandfather.

Obama entered Harvard Law School in 1988. In February 1990, he was elected the first African–American editor of the Harvard Law Review. Obama graduated magna cum laude in 1991.

After law school, Obama returned to Chicago to practice as a civil rights lawyer, joining the firm of Miner, Barnhill & Galland. He also taught at the University of Chicago Law School. And he helped organize voter registration drives during Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign.

Obama published an autobiography in 1995 Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. And he won a Grammy for the audio version of the book.

Obama’s advocacy work led him to run for the Illinois State Senate as a Democrat. He was elected in 1996 from the south side neighborhood of Hyde Park.

During these years, Obama worked with both Democrats and Republicans in drafting legislation on ethics, expanded health care services and early childhood education programs for the poor. He also created a state earned-income tax credit for the working poor. And after a number of inmates on death row were found innocent, Obama worked with law enforcement officials to require the videotaping of interrogations and confessions in all capital cases.

In 2000, Obama made an unsuccessful Democratic primary run for the U. S. House of Representatives seat held by four-term incumbent candidate Bobby Rush.

Following the 9/11 attacks, Obama was an early opponent of President George W. Bush’s push to war with Iraq. Obama was still a state senator when he spoke against a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq during a rally at Chicago’s Federal Plaza in October 2002.

"I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars," he said. "What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other arm-chair, weekend warriors in this Administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne."

"He's a bad guy," Obama said, referring to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. "The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him. But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history."

"I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U. S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences," Obama continued. "I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda."

The war with Iraq began in 2003 and Obama decided to run for the U.S. Senate open seat vacated by Republican Peter Fitzgerald. In the 2004 Democratic primary, he won 52 percent of the vote, defeating multimillionaire businessman Blair Hull and Illinois Comptroller Daniel Hynes.

That summer, he was invited to deliver the keynote speech in support of John Kerry at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. Obama emphasized the importance of unity, and made veiled jabs at the Bush administration and the diversionary use of wedge issues.

"We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states," he said. "We coach Little League in the blue states, and yes, we've got some gay friends in the red states. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq, and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the Stars and Stripes, all of us defending the United States of America."

After the convention, Obama returned to his U.S. Senate bid in Illinois. His opponent in the general election was suppose to be Republican primary winner Jack Ryan, a wealthy former investment banker. However, Ryan withdrew from the race in June 2004, following public disclosure of unsubstantiated sexual allegations by Ryan's ex wife, actress Jeri Ryan.

In August 2004, diplomat and former presidential candidate Alan Keyes, who was also an African-American, accepted the Republican nomination to replace Ryan. In three televised debates, Obama and Keyes expressed opposing views on stem cell research, abortion, gun control, school vouchers and tax cuts.

In the November 2004 general election, Obama received 70% of the vote to Keyes's 27%, the largest electoral victory in Illinois history. Obama became only the third African-American elected to the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction.

Sworn into office January 4, 2005, Obama partnered with Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana on a bill that expanded efforts to destroy weapons of mass destruction in Eastern Europe and Russia. Then with Republican Sen. Tom Corburn of Oklahoma, he created a website that tracks all federal spending.

Obama was also the first to raise the threat of avian flu on the Senate floor, spoke out for victims of Hurricane Katrina, pushed for alternative energy development and championed improved veterans´ benefits. He also worked with Democrat Russ Feingold of Wisconsin to eliminate gifts of travel on corporate jets by lobbyists to members of Congress.

His second book, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, was published in October 2006.

In February 2007, Obama made headlines when he announced his candidacy for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. He was locked in a tight battle with former first lady and current U.S. Senator from New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton until he became the presumptive nominee on June 3, 2008. On November 4th, 2008, Obama defeated Republican presidential nominee John McCain for the position of U.S. President. He is now the 44th president of the United States.

Obama met his wife, Michelle, in 1988 when he was a summer associate at the Chicago law firm of Sidley & Austin. They were married in October 1992 and live in Kenwood on Chicago's South Side with their daughters, Malia (born 1998) and Sasha (born 2001).

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