Former President Barack Obama made history in 2008 when he was elected the 44th president of the United States, becoming the first Black person to hold the nation’s highest office. His election marked a transformative moment in American history—one shaped by hope, resilience, and a belief in the power of collective progress.
Obama’s life story reflects the promise of the American dream. Born Aug. 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii, to a Kenyan father and a mother from Kansas, he was raised by his mother and grandparents. His grandfather served in World War II under General Patton, and his grandmother rose from a secretary to a middle-management position at a bank, instilling in him the values of hard work, education, and perseverance, according to The Obama White House Archives.
With the support of scholarships and student loans, Obama worked his way through college and later moved to Chicago, where he began his career as a community organizer. There, he helped empower neighborhoods hit hard by the decline of the steel industry, an experience that shaped his lifelong commitment to public service.
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He went on to earn his law degree from Harvard, where he became the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review. After graduating, Obama returned to Chicago to teach constitutional law, lead a voter registration drive, and remain deeply involved in grassroots activism.
His political career began in the Illinois State Senate, where he championed ethics reform, tax relief for working families, and expanded access to healthcare. As a U.S. Senator, he forged bipartisan efforts on issues such as government transparency, nuclear nonproliferation, and lobbying reform.
Elected president in 2008 and reelected in 2012, Obama’s presidency focused on economic recovery, healthcare reform, environmental action, and restoring America’s standing on the global stage. His leadership was defined by a message of unity, dignity, and progress, and a belief that public service is one of the highest callings.
Since leaving office, Obama has continued to inspire and lead through the Obama Foundation, promoting civic engagement, leadership development, and global dialogue for the next generation of changemakers.
You knew him as president, but here are 100 surprising facts you might not know about our former commander in chief.
Things you didn’t know about Barack Obama.
1. He liked HBO’s Entourage.
2. He predicted UNC to win the Final Four.
3. He rooted for the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Super Bowl.
4. His favorite basketball player is his daughter, Sasha.
5. He plans to vacation on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts.
6. He and Bill Cosby are the only people to ever get free food from Ben’s Chili Bowl.
7. He reads Harry Potter stories to his daughters.
8. He went to Wizards games and rooted for the Chicago Bulls.
9. He cursed and used the N-word in his audiobook, Dreams From My Father.
10. He has Jay-Z and Ludacris on his iPod.
11. He is a fan of show-tunes and gave an iPod full of them to the Queen of England.
12. He loves playing Scrabble.
13. He moved to Chicago and worked as a director of the Developing Communities Project after college.
14. The top contributors to his presidential campaign include Goldman Sachs, University of California, Citigroup Inc., Harvard University, Moveon.org, and Time Warner.
15. He was introduced to dog meat (tough), snake meat (tougher), and roasted grasshopper in Indonesia.
16. “His first car had so much rust that there was a rusted hole in the passenger door”- Michelle Obama.
17. He says his favorite children’s book is Where the Wild Things Are.
18. He calls himself a mutt.
19. His favorite president is Abraham Lincoln.
20. During his first date with his wife, Michelle Obama, the duo went to see Do The Right Thing.
21. His height is 6 feet and a half inch.
22. His sister is a teacher.
23. He learned how to play cricket in Trinidad and Tobago.
24. He owns a pair of boxing gloves signed by Muhammad Ali.
25. He was born at the Kapi’olani Medical Center for Women & Children.
Source: Pool / Getty
26. He traveled to Kenya in 1988 and met many of his paternal relatives.
27. He traveled back to Kenya as a Senator in 2006 and was given a hero’s welcome.
28. He has a beer named after him in Kenya.
29. He directed Illinois’ Project Vote in 1992.
30. He collects Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comics.
31. He has a comic book with Spider-Man and a Barack the Barbarian comic book.
32. His favorite meal is his wife Michelle’s shrimp linguini.
33. He worked in a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop as a teenager. Now he can’t stand ice cream.
34. His daughter, Sasha, on the other hand, is a big fan of ice cream.
35. His favorite snacks are chocolate-peanut protein bars.
36. He is the first president with a Blackberry.
37. He uses an Apple Mac laptop.
38. He is left-handed.
39. His daughter’s name, Malia, is Hawaiian.
40. He gets his hair cut once a week.
41. His favorite musical artists are Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan.
42. His favorite show is The Wire.
43. His favorite artist is Pablo Picasso.
44. His grandfather was affiliated with the Kenyan revolutionary Mau Mau movement.
45. He and his wife donated $25,000 to the United Negro College fund.
46. He changed his name from Barry back to Barack in College to assert his identity.
47. He majored in Political Science at Columbia University.
48. He was in the Black Students’ Union at both Occidental and Columbia.
49. His late father was a senior economist for the Kenyan government.
50. He keeps on his desk a carving of a wooden hand holding an egg, a Kenyan symbol for the fragility of life
51. His favorite drink is black forest berry iced tea
52. In high school, he was known as “Barry.”
Source: Brooks Kraft / Getty
53. He likes Beyonce’s song, “Single Ladies”
54. His daughter, Malia’s godmother, is Jesse Jackson’s daughter, Santita.
55. He can’t bowl.
56. He hit three straight three-pointers at a military base.
57. He would have liked to be an architect if he were not a politician.
58. He can speak Spanish.
59. He kept a pet ape called Tata while in Indonesia.
60. He can bench press an impressive 200lbs.
61. He applied to appear in a Black pin-up calendar while at Harvard but was rejected by the all-female committee.
62. He was given the code name “Renegade” by his Secret Service handlers.
63. He doesn’t like young people wearing baggy pants.
64. He can’t grow facial hair, only whiskers.
65. He wears Hart Schaffner Marx suits.
66. His father grew up herding goats.
67. His maternal grandfather fought in World War II.
68. He was only 1 of 3 black students at Punahou Academy in Hawaii.
69. He saw his father only once in 1971 for a Christmas visit.
70. He is distantly related to former Vice President Dick Cheney.
71. His high school yearbook picture inscription thanks “Tut,” “Gramps,” and the “Choom Gang.” Choom is Hawaiian slang for “pot smoking.”
72. His paternal grandfather was outright opposed to his son’s marriage to Ann Durnham because he thought his son was neglecting his ex-wife and two children in Kenya. He was also concerned that Ann was white.
73. Some of his maternal ancestors were slave owners.
74. He did a good imitation of Jesse Jackson while he was at Harvard.
75. He does a good job imitating Marlon Brando in The Godfather.
76. His schoolmates in Indonesia nicknamed him “Curly Eyelashes.”
77. He used to work in construction.
78. He once said the three men he admired the most were Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
79. His name means “one who is blessed” in Swahili.
80. His favorite book is Moby-Dick by Herman Melville.
81. His parents met in Russian class.
82. He enjoys playing poker.
83. He is distantly related to Brad Pitt.
84. He used to drive a Chrysler 300m.
85. He watches his daughter Sasha’s basketball games.
86. He is the first president to appear on a late-night talk show.
87. He has said many of his friends in Indonesia were “street urchins.”
88. He was nicknamed “Bear” by his late grandmother.
89. He owns four identical pairs of black, size 11 shoes.
90. He carries a tiny Madonna and child statue and a bracelet belonging to a soldier in Iraq for good luck.
91. He promised Michelle he would quit smoking before running for president. He didn’t.
92. Before he moved to the White House, he drove a Ford Escape Hybrid.
93. His cousin on Michelle’s side is a rabbi.
94. His old desk in his Senate office once belonged to Robert Kennedy.
95. His daughter Sasha’s real name is Natasha.
96. He has seven half-brothers and sisters in Kenya from his father’s other marriages.
97. He worked as a summer associate at the Sidley Austin law firm in Chicago.
98. He lost a congressional election in Illinois to Bobby Rush in 2000.
99. He answers one letter a day from people across the country.
