Barack Obama is the 44th president of the United States and the first African-American to hold that office. He was born in Hawaii in 1961 to an American mother and a Kenyan father. Obama also has a half-Indonesian half-sister from his mother’s second marriage and seven half-siblings from his father’s remarriage in Kenya (six of whom are living as of 2011). In 1983, Obama received his B.A in political science from Columbia University, and two years later he became a community organizer in Chicago. In 1988 he entered Harvard law School and became the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, and in 1997 his political career really began to blossom when he represented the 13th District in the Illinois Senate until 2004, when he was elected to the United States Senate in Illinois. When running for presidential office, Obama narrowly surpassed Hillary Clinton in the primaries to win the Democratic nomination, and in 2008 he defeated Republican John McCain to become president and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009. Acts that Obama has passed as president include American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009; Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010; the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010; and the Budget Control Act of 2011. He also ended the war in Iraq, increased troops in Afghanistan, and ordered the military operation that resulted in Osama bin Laden’s death.