Barack Obama made history November 4, 2008, becoming the first African American to be elected President. So how did this ambitious boy from Honolulu become our nations 44th President? Sit back and journey through Obama's private and professional years leading up to today!

August 4, 1961
Barack Hussein Obama Jr. is born in Honolulu, Hawaii to parents Barack Obama (an economist from Kenya) and Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro (an anthropologist from Kansas).

1963
His father leaves his family and returns to Kenya.

1967
His mother marries Lolo Soetoro and the family moves to Jakarta, Indonesia, for four years.

1971
He returns to his home state of Hawaii, at times living with his maternal grandparents Stanley and Madelyn Dunham. At this time he also enrolls at Punahou School, one of the largest private preparatory schools in the country.

1979
He graduates from high school and moves to Los Angeles, California to attend Occidental College.

August 1981
He transfers to Columbia College in Chicago, Illinois.

1983
Obama graduates from Columbia College with a major in political science and a specialization in international relations. He works for about a year at the Business International Corporation and is later hired by the New York Public Interest Research Group. He becomes a full-time organizer at City College in Harlem, being paid less then $10,000 a year to mobilize student volunteers.

1985 thru 1988
He moves to Chicago to work full time as a community organizer with a church-based group, the Developing Communities Project.

1988
Obama is brought to tears by Reverend Jeremiah Wright's "The Audacity of Hope" sermon. He later uses the title for his second book.

1990
He becomes the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review in its 104-year history. In 1991, he graduates magna cum laude from Harvard Law School.

1991
Moves back to Chicago and directs Project Vote, a grassroots campaign that registered nearly 150,000 black voters for the 1992 elections.

October 18, 1992
He marries Michelle Robinson in a ceremony performed by Rev. Wright at the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.

1993
He works as a law associate in the Chicago law firm Miner, Barnhill & Galland. He also works as a part-time professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School.

March 1995
He was part of the Chicago Annenburg Challenge and was named chairman of the six-member board overseeing Grants in Chicago. Also in 1995, Obama publishes his first book "Dreams from My Father."

1996
Obama wins the race for Illinois Senate in Chicago's Hyde Park, where he served until 2004.

1999
Barack and Michelle have their first child, daughter Malia Ann.

March 21, 2000
He loses the Democratic nomination for a seat in the House of Representatives to Bobby L. Rush.

2001
Barack and Michelle have their second child, daughter Natasha, nicknamed "Sasha."

October 2, 2002
Declares his opposition to a "war based not on reason, but on politics."

March 16, 2004
He wins the Democratic primary for United States Senate seat with 52 percent of the vote.

July 27, 2004
Delivered the keynote speech at the Democratic Party's national convention in Boston, saying: "We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America."

January 4, 2005
Sworn in to the US Senate as the third African American senator since Reconstruction, and the fifth in history. Serves on the Foreign Relations and Veteran's Affairs Committees.

February 10, 2007
Obama announces his presidential bid on the steps of the Old State Capitol building in Springfield, Illinois.

June 7, 2008
Hillary Clinton suspends her campaign after a grueling 16-month primary season battle, and urges her supporters to back Barack Obama.

August 23, 2008
Obama names veteran politician Joe Biden, who has three decades of experience in the U.S. Senate and chairs its Foreign Relations Committee, as his running mate.

August 28, 2008
Obama accepts the Democratic Presidential Nomination in front of 80,000 people at Denver's Invesco Field.

October 29, 2008
His 30-minute infomercial was watched by more than 33.5 million viewers according to Nielsen Media Research.

November 3, 2008
Obama's maternal grandmother, Madelyn Dunham lost her battle with cancer and died a day before the election. Dunham voted by early absentee ballot before her death and her vote was counted!

November 4, 2008
Barack Hussein Obama Jr. wins the presidential election with 349 electoral votes.

January 20, 2009
Presidential Inaugural ceremony.