| Obama in history (updated as of July 2010):
Presidency:
The presidency of Barack Obama began at midnight as per EST on January 20, 2009. He is the 44th US President. Obama, the former US Senator from Illinois, has won over the Senator from Arizona John McCain during the presidential election in 2008, thus becoming the first African -American President to be elected in US history.
Transition period and formation of cabinet:
The transition period started when Barack Obama was elected as US President on the 4th of November 2008. During the transition period Obama announced the composition of his Cabinet and Administration of the US President. Soon after the elections on November 4, 2008, Obama announced that Rahm Emanuel, representative of Illionis, would be White House Chief of Staff.
Former contenders during the primaries were also inducted into the cabinet: Hillary Rodham Clinton as Secretary of State and Bill Richardson as US Commerce Secretary.
On December 1, Obama stated that he would like to induct Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense and this is the first case where the Secretary of Defense belonged to another party, different from the party of the President after Republican Robert McNamara in the cabinet of Lyndon B. Johnson.
During the transition period the site Change.gov was updated in which Obama posted a blog and placed video footage. Immediately after the inauguration, information from this site was transferred to the official site of the White House www.whitehouse.gov.
Inauguration:
On January 20, 2009, during the inauguration ceremony near the Capitol Building, Obama was sworn-in as 44th US president at 12:05 EST (17:05 UTC); a record number of spectators witnessed the event - over one million spectators. The oath was taken in the name of the Bible, which was earlier used during the inauguration ceremony of Abraham Lincoln. The Commemorative Proclamation, declaring January 20, 2009 as the “National Day for updating and consent” became the first act signed by Obama after taking the oath of office as US President. In his speech, Obama called it as a “New Era of Responsibility”.
According to the Boston Globe, expenditure spent for the inauguration of Barack Obama and the inauguration celebrations was the highest in the US history: the expenditure for organizing the inauguration ceremony exceeded 160 million dollars.
The next day, late at night, according to the advice of Constitutional Jurists, Obama, as a precaution once again took the oath of office as head of state in the White house since a mistake was made by Obama while reading out the oath, established by the Constitution of the USA during the actual ceremony: Chairman of the US Supreme Court Mr. Roberts has wrongly put the word “faithfully” after the words “to fulfill duties of the President of the United States”.
Expectations:
Since Franklin Roosevelt, the first 100 days of the new administration were an indicator of the contemplations and effectiveness of US President. The first 100 days of Obama ended on the 29th of April. In his interview with 60 minutes, he said that he attentively studied the “100 Days” of Roosevelt. However, even he stated that “100 Days are important, however, something can be proved only in the first 1000 Days”. Despite this, the first 100 days of Obama were the subject of obvious interest even when he became the actual candidate from Democratic Party. Commentators figured out Obama’s chances to cope with internal and foreign policy issues and weighed his chances to understand the economic and ecological issues. CNN presented the list of economic problems, which “Obama and its Cabinet should solve in the first 100 days”. On the 5th of November 2008, “International Amnesty” published the list of expectations on adherence of human rights while dealing with terrorism and in April, 2009 it has published the review of Obama’s partial implementations.
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