It was on 4 November, 2008, that Barack Obama became the first African American to be elected President of the United States. Prior to 2008, no major Party in the United States had even nominated an African American person for either spot on a National ticket.
Obama was born in 1961, in Hawaii. His parents, Lee Dunham, of Kansas, and father, Barack Obama, Sr., of Kenya, met in a Russian language class at the University of Hawaii.
After graduating from Columbia University, Obama relocated to Chicago, where he began work as a community organizer, putting together both a job training program and a tenants rights organization in that city. In 1992, he would marry Michelle Robinson, a Chicago native and daughter of a Democratic Prescient Captain.
Obama successfully sought a seat in the Illinois State Legislature as a Democrat in 1996 and the US Senate in 2004. He delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in Boston in 2004 and captured the attention of Party activists and the general public. No speech since that of Mario Cuomo in 1984 had met with such wide acclaim or gained the speaker such recognition.
The 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary process quickly narrowed the candidates to only Barack Obama and former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, the wife of President, Bill Clinton. Ultimately, of the contests, which would include those in US Territories, Obama would win 33, Clinton, 23. Obama accepted the Democratic nomination at the convention in Denver, Colorado.
Barack Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden, would face Republican Senator John McCain, and his running mate, Governor Sarah Palin, in the general election and on 4 November would score a 365 to 173 victory in the electoral college.