August 4, 1961: Barack Hussein Obama II Born, in Kapiolani Medical Center, Honolulu, Hawaii to Barack Hussein Obama and Ann Dunham

1963: Barack Obama’s parents split apart and later divorce

1966: Ann Dunham remarries Lolo Soetoro (Indonesian Muslim, geologist government consultant with Mobil Oil )

1970: Obama’s sister, Maya Kassandra Soetoro, is born

1971 – 1979: Obama lives with his maternal grandparents and attends Punahou School in Hawaii (5th to 9th grade)

1980: Obama moves to Los Angeles and studies as Occidental College for two years.

1982:  Columbia University, NYC, majoring in political science with specialization in international relations

 

1983:  Graduated with a B.A. from Columbia in 1983, Worked at Business International Corporation and New York Public Interest Research Group

 

June 1985 – May 1988: Moved to Chicago to work as a community organizer, Director of the Developing Communities Project (DCP).  A faith based organization in South Side Chicago.

 During his three years as the DCP’s director, its staff grew from 1 to 13 and its annual budget grew from $70,000 to $400,000, with accomplishments including helping set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants’ rights organization in Altgeld Gardens.[13] Obama also worked as a consultant and instructor for the Gamaliel Foundation, a community organizing institute.

1988: Traveled to Europe for the first time then to Africa to meet his Kenyan relatives.

 

1988: Obama entered Harvard Law School and at the end of his first year was selected as an editor of the Harvard Law Review based on his grades and a writing competition

 

1989: Returned to Chicago where he had worked as a summer associate at the law firms of Sidley & Austin

 

February 1990: elected as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review was widely reported and followed by several long, detailed profiles

 

1991: Graduated with a J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard

 

1992: Barack Obama marries Michelle Robinson

 

April – October 1992: Obama directed Illinois Project Vote, a voter registration drive with a staff of 10 and 700 volunteers that achieved its goal of registering 150,000 of 400,000 unregistered African Americans in the state, leading Crain’s Chicago Business to name Obama to its 1993 list of “40 under Forty” powers to be.

 

1992: Axelrod met Obama.  Introduced by Betty Lu Saltzmann, a woman from Chicago’s “lakefront liberal crowd,” during a black voter registration drive he ran that she then introduced the two.

 

1992: Obama was a founding member of the board of directors of Public Allies, resigning before his wife, Michelle, became the founding executive director of Public Allies Chicago in 2002

 

1992 – 1996: Obama taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School for twelve years, as a Lecturer for four years

 

1993 – 1996:  Obama joined Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, a 12-attorney law firm specializing in civil rights litigation and neighborhood economic development

 

1993: served on the board of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago (on the board until 2002)

 

1994: Board of directors of The Joyce Foundation (on the board until 2002)

 

1995: Board of directors for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (served on the board until 1999)

 

1995: Board of directors of the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Center for Neighborhood Technology, and the Lugenia Burns Hope Center

 

1995:  The manuscript was finally published as Dreams from My Father

 

1996: Elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, succeeding State Senator Alice Palmer as Senator from the 13th District, which then spanned Chicago South Side neighborhoods

-He sponsored a law increasing tax credits for low-income workers, negotiated welfare reform, and promoted increased subsidies for childcare

- Once elected, Obama gained bipartisan support for legislation reforming ethics and health care laws

1998:  Obama Reelected to Illinois Senate

 

2000:  Lost a Democratic primary run for the U.S. House of Representatives to four-term incumbent Bobby Rush by a margin of two to one

 

2001:  As co-chairman of the bipartisan Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, Obama supported Republican Governor Ryan’s payday loan regulations and predatory mortgage lending regulations aimed at averting home foreclosures

 

2002:  Re-Elected to Illinois State Senate

 

2002:  Obama begins considering a run for the U.S. Senate, enlisting political strategist David Axelrod

 

2003: Obama sponsored and led unanimous, bipartisan passage of legislation to monitor racial profiling by requiring police to record the race of drivers they detained and legislation making Illinois the first state to mandate videotaping of homicide interrogations

 

2004: General election campaign for U.S. Senate, police representatives credited Obama for his active engagement with police organizations in enacting death penalty reforms.

July 2004:  Obama wrote and delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts.

After describing his maternal grandfather’s experiences as a World War II veteran and a beneficiary of the New Deal’s FHA and G.I. Bill programs, Obama spoke about changing the U.S. government’s economic and social priorities. He questioned the Bush administration’s management of the Iraq War and highlighted America’s obligations to its soldiers. Drawing examples from U.S. history, he criticized heavily partisan views of the electorate and asked Americans to find unity in diversity, saying, “There is not a liberal America and a conservative America; there’s the United States of America.” Broadcasts of the speech by major news organizations launched Obama’s status as a national political figure and boosted his campaign for U.S. Senate

2004: Obama vs. Alan Keyes for U.S. State Senate (Illinois)

 

Nov 2004: Obama resigned from the Illinois Senate in November 2004 following his election to the US Senate

 

2005: Obama sworn in as a U.S. Senator (fifth African American Senator in U.S. history, third to have been popularly elected)

 Obama recruited a team of established, high-level advisers devoted to broad themes that exceeded the usual requirements of an incoming first-term senator.  He hired Pete Rouse, a 30-year veteran of national politics and former chief of staff to Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle, as his chief of staff, and economist Karen Kornbluh, former deputy chief of staff to Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin, as his policy director. He recruited Samantha Power, author on human rights and genocide, and former Clinton administration officials Anthony Lake and Susan Rice as foreign policy advisers

2005:  Obama voted in favor of the Energy Policy Act of 2005

Cosponsored the “Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act” introduced by Republican John McCain of Arizona

“Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act”, which passed the Senate in May 2006, but failed to gain majority support in the House of Representatives

 

Lugar–Obama” expanded the Nunn–Lugar cooperative threat reduction concept to conventional weapons, including shoulder-fired missiles and anti-personnel mines.[61] The “Coburn–Obama Transparency Act” authorized the establishment of www.USAspending.gov,

 

Illinois residents complained of waste water contamination by a neighboring nuclear plant, Obama sponsored legislation requiring plant owners to notify state and local authorities of radioactive leaks.[63] A compromise version of the bill was subsequently blocked by partisan disputes and later reintroduced

September 2006: Obama supported a related bill, the Secure Fence Act, authorizing construction of fencing and other security improvements along the United States–Mexico border

 

2006: The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream published

 

2006:  President Bush signed into law the “Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act,” marking the first federal legislation to be enacted with Obama as its primary sponsor

He introduced S. 453, a bill to criminalize deceptive practices in federal elections, including fraudulent flyers and automated phone calls, as witnessed in the 2006 midterm elections

 

2006: Senate Committees for Foreign Relations, Environment and Public Works and Veterans’ Affairs

 

2007:  Obama worked with Democrat Russ Feingold of Wisconsin to eliminate gifts of travel on corporate jets by lobbyists to members of Congress and require disclosure of bundled campaign contributions under the “Honest Leadership and Open Government Act

 

February 2007: standing before the Old State Capitol building in Springfield, Illinois, Obama announced his candidacy for President of the United States in the 2008 U.S. presidential election.

 

2007: He left the Environment and Public Works committee and took additional assignments with Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

 

2007:  Chairman of the Senate’s subcommittee on European Affairs

 

Obama’s energy initiatives scored pluses and minuses with environmentalists, who welcomed his sponsorship with McCain of a climate change bill to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by two-thirds by 2050, but were skeptical of his support for a bill promoting liquefied coal production.[68] Obama also introduced the “Iraq War De-Escalation Act of 2007,” a bill to cap troop levels in Iraq, begin phased redeployment, and remove all combat brigades from Iraq before April 2008.[69]

 

Later in 2007, Obama sponsored an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act adding safeguards for personality disorder military discharges, and calling for an official review following reports that the procedure had been used inappropriately to reduce government costs.[70] He sponsored the “Iran Sanctions Enabling Act” supporting divestment of state pension funds from Iran’s oil and gas industry, and joined Republican Chuck Hagel of Nebraska in introducing legislation to reduce risks of nuclear terrorism.[71][72] A provision from the Obama–Hagel bill was passed by Congress in December 2007 as an amendment to the State-Foreign Operations appropriations bill.[72] Obama also sponsored a Senate amendment to the State Children’s Health Insurance Program providing one year of job protection for family members caring for soldiers with combat-related injuries

 

As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Obama has made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. In August 2005, he traveled to Russia, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan. The trip focused on strategies to control the world’s supply of conventional weapons, biological weapons, and weapons of mass destruction as a first defense against terrorist attacks.[78] Following meetings with U.S. military in Kuwait and Iraq in January 2006, he visited Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian territories. At a meeting with Palestinian students two weeks before Hamas won the legislative election, Obama warned that “the U.S. will never recognize winning Hamas candidates unless the group renounces its fundamental mission to eliminate Israel.”[79] He left for his third official trip in August 2006, traveling to South Africa, Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Chad. In a speech at the University of Nairobi, he spoke about political corruption and ethnic rivalries.[80] The speech touched off controversy among Kenyan leaders, some formally challenging Obama’s remarks as unfair and improper, others defending his positions

 

February 2008, Spoken word Grammy for The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

 

March 2008, Controversy broke out regarding Rev. Jeremiah Wright

 

May 2008, Obama resigned from Trinity Church of Christ

 

June 2008: Obama is the first African American to be the presumptive nominee of a major political party

 

June 2008: Obama became the first major-party presidential candidate to turn down public financing in the general election since the system was created after the Watergate scandal