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A notable person is someone who contributes greatly to humanity and makes many sacrifices to pursue their dreams. Notable people share similar traits of determination, dedication, always staying true, being courageous and heroic. "You encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated" Maya Angelou. A notable person does whatever it takes to pursue their dream even in the face of danger or hardship. For example, even though there were many critics who stated that he would be a bad president he still persevered and finally got elected as the first African-American president of all time.  Part of the criticism was due to his race. 

 

Barack Hussein Obama is arguably the best American president of all time who has accomplished many feats in his years at office. He is known for being the first African-American president of U.S.A and being the fourth president to win the Nobel peace prize. His accomplishments have helped the economy, health system and the defence forces of his country. His presidency has featured many ups and downs especially in his life before becoming president. He is now a happy, retired man who lives with his wife Michelle Obama and his two daughters Malia and Sasha, aged 23 and 20. He has also written many books ('A Promised Land', 'Dreams from my Father' etc) which has been so successful that he has won two Grammy awards for being the best spoken word album. 

 

I chose Barack Obama as my notable Person because I feel that I have a connection with him. Barack Obama has unique personality traits (empathetic, intelligent, warm, diligent and genuine) which really has shaped who he is today. I think I share some of those traits with him, so therefore I have a few similarities with my notable person. I also think we both share our love for reading and math. Obama has an active and inquisitive mind and has an organised, scheduled day like me. 

 

I also aspire to be like him in many ways. I aspire his eloquent, intriguing and persuasive talking in his conferences and meetings. His speeches are not only elegant but they are unique. People wanted him as president because he could take a different approach from a different perspective. I also aspire his curiosity and the amount of questions he asks which I wish to have. For example, he would be the first African-American president and he had made a new plan different from failures of presidents in the past. 

 

Obama was born on the fourth of August 1961 in Honolulu Hawaii. He was brought up by his mother (Stanley Ann Dunham) and his grandparents (Madelyn and Stanley Dunham) also helped. Obama's family was not wealthy, even though his grandparents and his mother were employed. At the age of six, Barack moved to Indonesia with his mother to start a new chapter in his life with his new stepfather. Although this was a new environment, Obama still persevered and his stepfather helped in hardship. Every morning at four-o'clock in the morning, Barack and his mum would get up to plan the day. Barack would look to his stepfather if he had problems, instead of look to his mum for help, because he knew nearly everything about Indonesia and familiar problems. Indonesia was a highly populated but impoverished country without a high level of security or laws. For example, one day Barack was playing soccer and someone kicked him on purpose to try and get the ball and his leg started bleeding. Barack thought this was completely unfair as he wasn't use to such behaviour. He came home and his stepfather said that he needed to learn how to be stronger so he suggested boxing. 

 

Barack received the news that his mother was going to have a baby. This was meant to be good news but that meant that he had to move back to Hawaii with his grandparents to go to an excellent academic school. On the first day of school, boys in the class teased Obama for having the name of Barack Obama, he felt embarrassed even though his teacher was very empathetic and polite. This continued to happen because Barack was one of the only African-Americans in the whole school. Later in the year, Obama's first father (Barack Obama sr.) came to Hawaii to see him. Although Barack was very shy at first, he liked having him around for his company. His African dad really shaped who he is today and his dad really started his interests in politics as he was part of the African government. Barack's grandparents told many stories of how confident, courageous and outgoing his own father was. 

 

His mother later returned to Hawaii with her baby, Maya Soetoro (named after Maya Angelou). Maya was a half-sister to Barack and they became very close. Maya later moved back to Indonesia. Barack in his late high school years, was diligent and curious. Barack Obama was excellent at debating and speaking in front of a large audience. Obama was quite interested in law and politics, which would later be vital in his career. Obama got into Harvard Law school, one of the biggest law schools in the world and he was one of the most intelligent and diligent people there. He continued to ask questions even though other people continued to roll their eyes and mock him. Many people were shocked by the amount of homework they needed to do, this wasn't the case for Obama as he liked being busy and enjoyed his life even more. In 1988, Obama became the first black president of Harvard Law School. This was one of the major achievements in his life. 

 

Michelle Robinson (25) met Barack Obama (28) when they were among the few African Americans at their law firm, Sidley Austin LLP. She was assigned to mentor him while he was a summer associate. Because she was a mentor they would go for business lunches together where they would talk about family life and next met at a community organisation meeting which was the first time Barack impressed her. Michelle told her mum that she still wanted to focus mostly on her law career and not only on his. Their first date was watching the movie Do the Right Thing (1989). They continued to have daily dates and talks and continued to connect to each other. Michelle was a talkative, outgoing person which Obama liked. After many further dates, Barack And Michelle married on the third of October 1992 where  few guests were invited to an expensive but small wedding. Michelle later played an imperative role of support and guidance in the years to come. 

 

In 1994, his mum living in Indonesia, had a major stomach pain and it was apparently indigestion. Maya was living in Hawaii at the time and couldn't take care of her mum in hospital. Every week or so, Maya or her mum would call Barack to tell him how they are feeling. Sometimes even his mother would ask about his life and problems. These talks were quite emotional for Barack especially when she was in misery or pain. Early in 1955, Barack's mother came to New York to go to a hospital and was unfortunately diagnosed with uterine cancer. Barack's mother then moved to Hawaii in misery, but at least Maya could take care of her physically. Maya called quite often and one day she told him that Barack should come to Hawaii to see his mum one last time. Unfortunately he was too late as he received a call that his mum had died. Barack cried with sorrow and thought about how much she had helped him. 

 

Every now and then the couple talked about having kids and how would they be like and what personality traits they might have. After a few years, their dream came true of having a baby. On the fourth of July 1998, Malia Ann Obama was born and the couple experienced more joy than ever before. Because they both had work sometimes Malia was cared for by a nanny but Michelle  would usually take care of her. Work was becoming quite overwhelming especially for Michelle who was doing two jobs of working and baby sitting and she was convinced that she wasn't doing either job well. Barack and Michelle had many arguments and Michelle once said 'I feel like I'm doing everything' which made Barack feel downhearted and useless. Sasha Obama was born on the tenth of June 2001 and they experienced yet another joy but work just became more stressful. 

 

In 1997, Barack Obama got elected for the Illinois state senate. His workplace was in Springfield which was quite far away from his house. Therefore, he had to stay at Springfield for 5 or so days before going back home to see Michelle and the kids. Sometimes Barack would feel homesick because he couldn't enjoy his life or see his kids. Every 3 weeks, Obama would have a debate to discuss and argue new ideas which he would normally specialise in and stand out. There were many occasional letters and talks saying that Obama should run for senate. Obama always considered to be the fifth African-American senate (Obama wanted to run for the American senate which was better than the Illinois role as a leader). For this to happen he had to ask Michelle and she reluctantly agreed for a campaign for being a senator. For Barack to get the job of a president he, his team and Michelle would have to raise ten million dollars or more. This meant that they had to occasionally go out on the street to either tell people about Barack or ask for money to support his campaign. After several months they had got enough money but this was unfortunately not the biggest problem. The biggest problem was to actually get elected to the Senate. Obama then received the news that his main 'rival' for senator had to drop out because of family health difficulties. Although Obama was a bit empathetic towards him this would benefit in his chances greatly of being elected as a senator. On the third of January 2005, Obama got elected as senator over Alan Keyes, the main 'obstacle' in his way. 
 

Obama was delighted that he had got a seat in the American senate. Obama wanted to act right away as he knew there was a lot to do and a lot to change. It wasn't that beneficial that Obama didn't have much power unlike George Bush who was the best president. In his first year he focused on lobbying, campaign finance reform, election reform, climate control and troop reductions. This all went quite well and nearly everything was going smoothly. In his second year he worked on military discharges, Iran divestment and nuclear terrorism reduction. Obama suggested a wonderful idea of a State Children's Health programme (related military family jobs protection). This idea was vetoed (rejected) by George Bush which didn't help Obama at all. 

 

Obama became a celebrity all around America and normally whenever he saw someone they would always ask something ridiculous, such as "are you planning to run for president?". Obama's answer wouldn't be a "no" or "yes" but just a "maybe". One time the Obama's and Malia's friend went to South Africa and many people there knew about Barack and said they were proud that Barack would become the first African-American president. Obama was very surprised and taken aback by their confidence. Obama thought that being the first African-American president would be an honour and a privilege. His team and advisors said that he should campaign for presidency and they said that they couldn't be more happy if he was president. The only other person Barack needed to get permission from was Michelle, the most difficult person. One night after the kids went to bed early and Barack and Michelle were sitting down in front of the TV, Barack asked If they should do a campaign for president. Michelle was quite angry that Obama even considered the idea and said that campaigning for senator was too much already. Barack was quite downhearted but understood how it would have felt to be in her shoes. Barack Obama was on the news and everyone was saying that he had to be president. A few months later, Barack tried one more time to ask Michelle about him being the president. Surprisingly, Michelle  agreed for him to run for presidency. 

 

Obama had a solid, experienced team to get ready for his campaign and many of them would become great friends. In Barack's breaks he would play basketball with his team and normally people and supporters would watch. One time Craig, a member of his team was easily winning in basketball, Obama said to take it a bit easier so he had a bigger chance of getting more supporters. To be president, Obama had to raise a whopping amount of ten million dollars, but luckily Obama had many supporters to count on raising more money. Michelle didn't help as that was part of the deal for his campaign for president. On the tenth of February 2007, Barack announced his candidacy for president in front of the Old State Capitol building, where Abraham Lincoln had delivered his "House Divided" speech. Hillary Clinton, wife of Bill Clinton (42nd president) also announced her candidacy for presidency to be the first female president. She would easily be his main rival for president and she had many more supporters than he did. One of Obama's experienced advisors said that "If you win Iowa, you win the election". Barack organised a trip to Iowa to get more supporters and this was very successful. Hillary went to New Hampshire and she was probably going to win that state being also quite successful there. When Obama was asked questions, he would answer them properly with appropriate answers. One day one of his advisors said that he shouldn't try to answer the questions directly and instead try to focus on his priorities if he was president.  Hillary Clinton pointed that out and noted that down with her team. 

 

After a few months of campaigning and travelling, Obama won Iowa and won the election. Obama would become the first African American president of all time and Barack couldn't be more proud of his team and family. Obama's vice president was Joe Biden, a very nice comrade. In his debates with Hillary he said that he would focus on health, the economy and war areas in need which worked wonderfully. In his first speech as president his speech couldn't have been better and there were constant chants of 'OBAMA, OBAMA!'. Michelle was bewildered and very impressed that he pulled this all of and his daughters were very surprised. Barack had to take an oath for president with one mistake which was apparently big news but Barack didn't really care. Because he was president he and his family had to move to the White House and in there were many security guards and they were many doors. In the first few days of his presidency, Barack had to organise his team for his presidential years. It took a few weeks to sort it all out, but in the end he was satisfied with his team. 

 

Obamacare (Affordable Care Act) has created healthcare for those in poverty and for those in the lower class. Millions of Americans have benefited greatly from their insurance coverage. Many of those people were unemployed or had low-paying job and some had disabilities or family hardships. Other people had major health conditions. The people who have mostly benefited are Black-Americans. Obama has been successful with the Affordable Care Act and this is arguably his best achievement in office. 

 

Another one of Obama's greatest achievements is the elimination of Osama Bin Laden. Osama is known for being the cause of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. 9/11 happened in New York  in 2001 and had cost the lives of 2,996 people.  Obama contributed to the death of Bin Laden and reminded everyone of what Osama did and how many innocent people he killed. An interesting fact is that in the book of a Promised Land (written by Obama) Obama said that he was embarrassed of having a name that rhymes with Osama. Obama has therefore contributed greatly to the elimination of Osama Bin Laden. 

 

Obama focused on military, defences and nuclear deals like George Bush. Obama put 68,000 troops in Afghanistan as he said that the focus shouldn't be in Iraq but in Afghanistan. Many asked to deploy an additional 40,000 troops there but after some thought he decided to deploy 30,000 troops which was criticised by many in his party. In August, on schedule, Obama decided that the Iraq combat mission would come to a close and only 50,00 troops would remain as many American troops died. This strategy was very successful and was one of his best moves. 

 

One of Barack's greatest achievements was when Obama signed a nuclear deal with Iran. Worth tens of billions of dollars, Iran had been slowly making a dangerous nuclear bomb. Obama decided to courageously negotiate with the Iranian government to put a hold on the nuclear bomb manufacturing to reduce the risk of the U.S. or any other country being bombed.  Obama has shown that he is notable by showing courage even when there was danger as he was bold enough to speak with America's 'old enemies'. 

 

To encapsulate, Obama has accomplished many feats in his years at office and is arguably the best president of America of all time. Obama is best known for being the first African-American President and winning the Nobel Prize. Obama has created Affordable health, economic growth and wartime success in the U.S.A. Barack Obama is definitely notable as not only has he helped U.S.A recover from hardship but he left office with many achievements to his name. 

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