Happy Birthday President Obama!

The United States is currently celebrating the 54th birthday of its 44th President, Barack Obama on August 4, and when looking at these years of his life, it becomes clear that despite some of his faults and the things that have made him more unpopular as the years have gone on, there is not way his accomplishments-personal and political-can be questioned.

Here are 8 huge things Obama has accomplished during his first 54 years:

His Personal Life:

Even before he made history as the first African-American President of the United States, Barack Obama had don't some great things. A graduate of Harvard Law School in 1991, he had a successful career as a lawyer until his election as a U.S. Senator in 2004. In 1992, he married his wife, Michelle, and the couple welcomed daughters Malia and Sasha in 1998 and 2001 respectively. He was also a best-selling offer prior to his election as president, with two books, Dreams From My Father (1995) and The Audacity of Hope (2006). He followed those up in 2010 with a book for his daughters, Of Thee I Sing.

Made Election History

Obama began his first term as a U.S. Senator from Illinois in 2005, after receiving 70 percent of the popular vote. This catapulted him to a notable status in government because he was only the 5th African-American Senator in U.S. history, and just the third to be popularly elected. He then made history a second time when he defeated Sen. John McCain for the presidency in 2008, winning 365 electoral votes to McCain's 173, and securing the largest percentage of popular vote since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Though the vote was much closer in 2012, Obama still also managed to defeat opponent Mitt Romney in 2012 with 332 votes to 206.

As the first African-American President, Obama was also awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, for his 'extraordinary efforts to strengthen the international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.'

Health Care Reform:

After other presidents failed in the creation of universal health insurance, Obama signed the Affordable Care Act in 2010. Though still considered controversial by some, it required that 32 million Americans who weren't insured would be covered beginning in 2014. By March of this year, number showed that 16.4 million had become covered due the Act between the Health Insurance Marketplace, Medicaid expansion, and young people staying on parents' plans longer. The uninsured rate has since fallen to 11.4 percent, down from 18 in 2013.

Economic Reform:

When he was first elected President, Obama inherited a country in the midst of its greatest recession since the Great Depression, which put significant pressure on him to bail it out and start helping the economy to grow again. There is still a long way to go before full recovery could hopefully be achieved, but between the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which has created more jobs and helped lower the unemployment rate, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, which helped re-regulate the financial sector, his injecting billions in federal money into helping recover the auto industry, and approving a controversial plan to help get banks back up and running, the economy has slowly and steadily begun to improve.

The End Of The War In Iraq, A Massive Scale Down of War In Afghanistan, & The Death Of Osama Bin Laden:

An original opponent of the Iraq War started under George W. Bush's presidency, Obama ordered all U.S. military forces out of the country, with the last ones leaving at the end of 2011. Likewise, he ended initial combat missions in Afghanistan as well.

In addition, also in 2011, Obama ordered a special forces raid of a secret compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where the terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden was finally killed, 10 years after 9/11.

Improved Foreign Relations With Long-Term Enemies:

In 2014, Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro reached an unexpected thawing of relations between the two countries, effectively ending more than half a century of animosity between the two. Even more remarkable, in July of 2015, Obama's negotiators reached a landmark agreement with Iran to curb the country's ability to build nuclear weapons for at least 15 years.

Marriage Equality & Military Reforms For Gay And Lesbian Citizens:

Not only did Obama repeal 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' which allowed for Gay and Lesbian service members to do so openly for the first time, he achieved great strides toward couples eventually being given full marriage equality throughout the United States in June 2015. His nomination and obtaining confirmation for Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic and third woman to serve on the Supreme Court in 2009, and repeating the process for Elena Kagan, the fourth woman to serve in 2010, Obama helped pave the way to eventual landmark rulings giving marriage equality. The court went on to declare the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional, and then later declared that same-sex couples would have the right to marry across all 50 states.

Education Reforms:

While his wife focused on initiatives to bring healthier school lunches and meals to kids across the U.S., Obama pushed for massive reforms at both the secondary and post-secondary school levels. With Race to the Top, he created a program of competitive grants to encourage and reward states for education reform. He also improved the Federal Student Loan Program by cutting banks out of the equation, and helped funnel an extra $36 billion into Pell Grant funding to help lower-income students pay for college. He also cracked down on for-profit colleges, issuing regulations which cut commercially focused schools from federal student aid funding if more than 35 percent of former students weren't paying off student loan debt, and if average former students were spending more than 12 percent of their total earning to pay off their loans.

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Barack Obama