P213 - USA - Barack Obama and White House

Barack Obama, 44th President of USA, Washington, USA

Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama was the junior United States Senator from Illinois from January 2005 until November 2008, when he resigned after his election to the presidency.

Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and also taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004.

Obama served three terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004. Following an unsuccessful bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000, Obama ran for United States Senate in 2004. His victory from a crowded field in the March 2004 Democratic primary raised his visibility, and his prime-time televised keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004 made him a rising star nationally in the Democratic Party. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in November 2004 by the largest margin in Illinois history.

He began his run for the presidency in February 2007. After a close campaign in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries against Hillary Rodham Clinton, he won his party's nomination, becoming the first major party African American candidate for president. In the 2008 general election, he defeated Republican candidate John McCain and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009.

The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the President of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., it was built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the late Georgian style and has been the executive residence of every U.S. President since John Adams. When Thomas Jefferson moved into the home in 1801, he (with architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe) expanded the building outward, creating two colonnades which were meant to conceal stables and storage.

In 1814, during the War of 1812, the mansion was set ablaze by the British Army in the Burning of Washington, destroying the interior and charring much of the exterior walls. Reconstruction began almost immediately, and President James Monroe moved into the partially reconstructed house in October 1817. Construction continued with the addition of the South Portico in 1824 and the North in 1829. Due to crowding within the executive mansion itself, President Theodore Roosevelt had nearly all work offices relocated to the newly-constructed West Wing in 1901. Eight years later, President William Howard Taft expanded the West Wing and created the first Oval Office which was eventually moved as the section was expanded. The third-floor attic was converted to living quarters in 1927 by augmenting the existing hip roof with long shed dormers. A newly constructed East Wing was used as a reception area for social events; both new wings were connected by Jefferson's colonnades. East Wing alterations were completed in 1946 creating additional office space. By 1948, the house's load-bearing exterior walls and internal wood beams were found to be close to failure. Under Harry S. Truman, the interior rooms were completely dismantled, resulting in the construction of a new internal load-bearing steel framework and the reassembly of the interior rooms.

Today, the White House Complex includes the Executive Residence (in which the First Family resides), the West Wing (the location of the Oval Office, Cabinet Room, and Roosevelt Room), and the East Wing (the location of the office of the First Lady and White House Social Secretary), as well as the Old Executive Office Building, which houses the executive offices of the President and Vice President.

The White House is made up of six stories—the Ground Floor, State Floor, Second Floor, and Third Floor, as well as a two-story basement. The term White House is regularly used as a metonym for the Executive Office of the President of the United States and for the president's administration and advisors in general. The property is owned by the National Park Service and is part of the President's Park. In 2007, it was ranked second on the American Institute of Architects's List of America's Favorite Architecture.

巴拉克·侯赛因·奥巴马二世（英文：Barack Hussein Obama II，1961年8月4日－），美国第44任总统，出生于美国夏威夷州火奴鲁鲁。在就任总统之前，他从2005年1月4日至2008年11月16日担任联邦参议员，代表伊利诺州。根据美国参议院历史办公室的资料显示，奥巴马是历史上第五位有非裔美国人血统的参议员，也是首位有黑人血统的美国总统。

奥巴马于1996年当选伊利诺州参议员。4年后，他竞选美国众议院席位失败。随后他将主要精力放在本州的参议工作，且于2002年获得连任。奥巴马在2004年美国民主党全国代表大会发表主题演讲，成为全美知名的政界人物。2004年11月以70%的选票当选联邦参议员。

奥巴马在2007年2月10日正式宣布参加2008年美国总统选举。他的竞选纲领侧重完结伊拉克战争及实施全民医疗保险制度。2008年6月赢得民主党初选，成为美国历史上首位被主要政党提名的非洲裔总统候选人，11月4日当选总统。

白宫（英语：White House）是美国总统的官邸和办公室。白宫由美国国家公园管理局（National Park Service）拥有，是“总统公园”（President's Park）的一部分。二十美元纸币的背面图片就是白宫。

白宫是一幢白色的新古典风格砂岩建筑物，位于华盛顿哥伦比亚特区宾夕法尼亚西北大道1600号。因为白宫是美国总统的居住和办公的地点，“白宫”一词常代指美国政府，譬如“白宫宣布，英国首相访问美国”。
References sources : Wikipedia