Portrait of Barack Obama Sr.

Birthday profile

Barack Obama Sr.

Barack Obama Sr., Kenyan economist (died 1982)

Born
June 18, 1934
Died
November 24, 1982
Zodiac sign
Gemini
Birth year
1934

About Barack Obama Sr.

Barack Hussein Obama was a Kenyan senior governmental economist and the father of Barack Obama, a former president of the United States. He is a central figure of his son's memoir, Dreams from My Father (1995). Obama married in 1954 and had two children with his first wife, Kezia. He was selected for a special program to attend college in the United States and studied at the University of Hawaii where he met Stanley Ann Dunham, whom he married in 1961 following the conception of his son, Barack. Obama and Dunham divorced three years later. Obama then went to Harvard University for graduate school, where he earned an MA in economics, and returned to Kenya in 1964. He saw his son Barack once more, when his son was about 10. Obama first worked for an oil company, before beginning work as an economist with the Kenyan Ministry of Transport. In 1959, Obama enrolled at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in Honolulu as the university's first African foreign student.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Barack Obama Sr. timeline

  1. Obama married in 1954 and had two children with his first wife, Kezia.
  2. In 1959, Obama enrolled at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in Honolulu as the university's first African foreign student.
  3. He was selected for a special program to attend college in the United States and studied at the University of Hawaii where he met Stanley Ann Dunham, whom he married in 1961 following the conception of his son, Barack.

The world when Barack Obama Sr. was born

Barack Obama Sr. was born in 1934. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1934

  • #1 song"Stars Fell on Alabama"
  • Top movieIt Happened One Night
  • Best-selling bookTender Is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentFirst Masters Tournament held at Augusta National
  • Top headlineFBI kills John Dillinger outside a Chicago theater
  • Technology milestoneFirst streamlined passenger train (Burlington Zephyr)
  • Defining fadShirley Temple mania
  • Notable inventionLaundromat
  • World population2.20 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderFranklin D. Roosevelt
  • Sports championSt. Louis Cardinals (World Series)
  • U.S. population126.4M

1934 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Barack Obama Sr.'s birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19342026
Gas$0.19$3.45/gal
Average home$4,900$435,000
Average income$2,500$67,500
Minimum wage$0.25$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.20$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population126.4M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.