Posted on: Sunday, January 18, 2009
Obama's life
Compiled from Advertiser and Gannett News Services
Aug. 4, 1961: Obama is born at the old Kapiolani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital, now called Kapiolani Medical Center for Women & Children, to a white University of Hawai'i student from Kansas named Stanley Ann Dunham and a black UH economics student from Kenya named Barack H. Obama.
1963: Obama's parents separate and then divorce.
1966: Obama is enrolled at Noelani Elementary School.
1967: Moves to Indonesia with his mother, who has married UH student Lolo Soetoro.
1971: Returns to Hawai'i to live with his grandparents, who enroll him as a fifth-grader at Punahou School on a partial scholarship at age 10. He later tells Punahou officials that his first teacher, Mabel Hefty, was his favorite. Hefty had lived in Kenya and told Obama that his experiences outside America had value.
1975: Plays intermediate football at Punahou as an eighth-grader.
1976: Sings in the Punahou Boys' Chorus One.
1977: Sings in the Punahou Concert Choir as a 10th-grader; plays junior varsity basketball.
1978: Makes the Punahou varsity basketball team as a junior.
1979: Plays on the state championship basketball team as the only left-hander; writes for Ka Wai Ola, Punahou's high school literary journal.
1979: Graduates from Punahou.
1979-81: Attends Occidental College in Southern California.
1983: Graduates from Columbia University in New York City.
1983-84: Works for Business International Corp., a firm helping American businesses abroad.
1985: Moves to Chicago to work for a nonprofit group.
1988: Enrolls in law school.
February 1990: Elected first black president of Harvard Law Review.
Spring 1991: Graduates magna cum laude from Harvard.
Summer 1991: Returns to Chicago as a civil rights lawyer and teaches constitutional law at the University of Chicago.
Oct. 18, 1992: Marries Michelle LaVaughn Robinson.
1993-96: Becomes an associate at Miner, Barnhill & Galland, representing community organizers, discrimination claims and voting-rights cases.
1993-2004: Lectures in constitutional law at the University of Chicago.
1995: Publishes "Dreams from My Father.''
November 1995: Stanley Ann Dunham dies of cancer. Obama scatters her ashes at Lana'i Lookout on O'ahu.
1996: Elected to Illinois state Senate.
1999: Daughter Malia Ann is born.
2000: Makes unsuccessful bid for Democratic nomination to U.S. House of Representatives.
2001: Daughter Natasha, known as Sasha, is born.
March 2004: Wins Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.
July 27, 2004: Delivers keynote speech at Democratic National Convention, which launches Obama onto the national political scene.
2004: Elected to U.S. Senate.
Spring 2005: Named one of the "world's most influential people" by Time magazine.
Feb. 10, 2007: Announces his run for president at the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Ill., where Abraham Lincoln's political career was born.
Jan. 3, 2008: Wins Iowa caucuses.
June 3, 2008: Wins the 2,118 delegates needed for the Democratic nomination.
Aug. 8: Following his Democratic nomination, Obama brings his family to Honolulu for a week-long vacation that includes stops at the USS Arizona Memorial, the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl and Hanauma Bay. He enjoys shave ice with his daughters in Kailua and plays a couple of rounds of golf — to the delight of Hawai'i's struggling tourism industry. Photos of Obama body surfing at Sandy Beach appear around the world. He also tosses a lei into the ocean at Lana'i Lookout, where he had scattered his mother's ashes in 1995.
Aug. 28, 2008: Accepts the party's nomination on the 45th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.
Oct. 23: After his maternal grandmother Madelyn Dunham slips and breaks her hip in the apartment where she raised him, Obama cancels campaign appearances and returns home without his wife and children for what will be the last time he sees his grandmother. The visit lasts just over 24 hours.
Nov. 2: Madelyn Dunham dies in her apartment at age 86 after voting for her grandson by absentee ballot. It is later disclosed that she died of cancer.
Nov. 4: Wins presidential election.
Dec. 20: Obama and his family land in Honolulu for a 12-day vacation over the holidays in Obama's third and final Honolulu trip of 2008. Obama spends his vacation working out nearly every morning at Marine Corps Base Hawaii, plays golf, eats shave ice at Koko Marina Center, takes the family to Sea Life Park and visits the Honolulu Zoo.
Dec 22: Obama and his family hold a private service for Dunham at First Unitarian Church and scatter her ashes at Lana'i Lookout, the same spot where he scattered his mother's ashes.
