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Obama re-elected:

Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States on Jan. 20, 2009. The son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas, he was the first African-American to ascend to the highest office in the land.

On Nov. 6, 2012, Mr. Obama was re-elected, defeating his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, after a long, hard-fought campaign that centered on who would heal the battered economy and on what role government should play in the 21st century.

In 2008, Mr. Obama had beaten Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican, after defeating Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primaries.

Mr. Obama’s 2008 victory came as the economy was in near free-fall, and his term has been shaped by what many have called the Great Recession and the weak recovery that followed. Mr. Obama was confronted by a number of crucial issues in foreign policy, including the war in Iraq, where he withdrew American troops, andAfghanistan, where he increased their numbers before beginning a drawdown meant to end America’s combat role in 2014.