Barack Obama

Elected president of the Harvard Law Review. First Black person to hold the position in the journal's 104-year history. He is 28. Law firms and publishers start calling immediately. He turns down the big-money offers and moves to Chicago to work as a civil rights attorney and teach constitutional law.

Publishes Dreams from My Father. It sells poorly. A memoir about race, identity, and a Kenyan father he met once. His publisher drops the paperback. After the 2004 convention speech, it gets reprinted and sells millions.

Delivers the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. He is a state senator from Illinois running for the U.S. Senate. Almost nobody outside Illinois has heard of him. "There's not a liberal America and a conservative America. There's the United States of America." The speech lasts 17 minutes. By the time he finishes, he is the most talked-about politician in the country.

Elected 44th President of the United States. He defeats John McCain with 365 electoral votes. He is the first African American president. In Grant Park, Chicago, 240,000 people gather for his victory speech. Jesse Jackson, who marched with Martin Luther King, stands in the crowd with tears streaming down his face.

Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize nine months into his presidency. He has been in office less than a year. The announcement surprises the world and embarrasses him. His own advisors joke about it. He donates the $1.4 million prize money to charity.

Signs the Affordable Care Act into law, the largest expansion of American health coverage since Medicare in 1965. The bill passes with zero Republican votes. It survives more than 70 repeal attempts and two Supreme Court challenges. It extends health insurance to 20 million previously uninsured Americans.

Announces that Osama bin Laden has been killed by U.S. Navy SEALs in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The raid takes 40 minutes. Obama watched the operation in real time from the White House Situation Room. It is nearly ten years since September 11.

Visits Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. He is the first sitting U.S. president to visit the site of the world's first atomic bombing. He doesn't apologize. He lays a wreath. He embraces Shigeaki Mori, an 80-year-old survivor. Mori weeps. Seventy-one years have passed.

Delivers his farewell address in Chicago, the city where his political career began. He is 55. His hair has gone gray. Twenty thousand people fill McCormick Place. He tells them: "Yes we can. Yes we did."