Exactly 15 years ago as of Wednesday, then-President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize less than nine months into his first term in office. Let’s relive many of the highlights of his presidential candidacy and presidency with these 15 incredible photos.
Then-Sen. Obama of Illinois appears at his first campaign rally since announcing his presidential candidacy, on Feb. 20, 2007, in Los Angeles, California. At the time, Obama was polling behind then-Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York.
Obama appears with his wife, Michelle, and their daughters Malia, left, and Sasha in Des Moines, Iowa, after his upset victory over Clinton in the state’s caucuses on Jan. 3, 2008.
Supporters in Chicago cheer as CNN announces Obama’s 2008 victory, making him the nation’s first Black president.
Joined by Vice President Joe Biden, Obama signs the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science on Feb. 17, 2009. The law was a $787 billion stimulus designed to create or save 3.5 million jobs and end the worst U.S. economic crisis since the 1930s.
Obama bends down so that the son of a White House staffer can feel his hair on May 8, 2009. (Official White House photo by Pete Souza.)
Obama receives the Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in Oslo, Norway, on Dec. 10, 2009.
Obama delivers his first State of the Union address at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 27, 2010. “Our administration has had some political setbacks this year, and some of them were deserved. But I wake up every day knowing that they are nothing compared to the setbacks that families all across this country have faced this year,” he said. “And what keeps me going—what keeps me fighting—is that despite all these setbacks, that spirit of determination and optimism, that fundamental decency that has always been at the core of the American people, that lives on.”
“It lives on in the struggling small business owner who wrote to me of his company, ‘None of us are willing to consider, even slightly, that we might fail,’” he continued. “It lives on in the woman who said that even though she and her neighbors have felt the pain of recession, ‘We are strong. We are resilient. We are American.’ It lives on in the eight-year-old boy in Louisiana who just sent me his allowance and asked if I would give it to the people of Haiti. And it lives on in all the Americans who’ve dropped everything to go someplace they’ve never been and pull people they’ve never known from the rubble, prompting chants of ‘U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A!’ when another life was saved.”
Obama and Biden receive a standing ovation during the signing ceremony for the Affordable Health Care Act in the East Room of the White House on March 23, 2010. Its passage followed a 14-month battle, and not a single Republican voted for it. Now, many of its provisions, such as protections for preexisting conditions, are broadly popular across the electorate.
Obama stands at the North Pool of the 9/11 Memorial in New York City, during the 10th anniversary ceremonies of the terrorist attacks.
Obama speaks to delegates at the 2012 Democratic National Convention on Sept. 6, 2012, in Charlotte, North Carolina. He won the state in 2008 but would go on to narrowly lose it that year.
Obama speaks on Aug. 28, 2013, during a commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which culminated in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s famous "I Have a Dream" speech.
The tan suit strikes in the White House on Aug. 28, 2014.
Obama hugs the late Rep. John Lewis, who marched at Selma. They stand at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 2015, for an event marking the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery civil rights marches.
Obama’s wave lines up with a rainbow as he boards Air Force One to depart from Kingston, Jamaica, on April 9, 2015. (Official White House photo by Pete Souza.)
Obama plays with the daughter of deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes on June 4, 2015.
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