The following is a timeline of the presidency of Barack Obama, from January 1, 2010, to December 31, 2010. For his time as president-elect, see the presidential transition of Barack Obama; for a detailed account of his first months in office, see first 100 days of Barack Obama's presidency; for a complete itinerary of his travels, see list of presidential trips made by Barack Obama.
January
January 5 – President Obama holds a major security meeting in the wake of the attempted attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253. January 7 – President Obama meets with former President Bill Clinton at the White House. January 13 – President Obama holds a press conference discussing the operations of US government organizations such as USAID and the Department of Defense in response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake. January 14 – President Obama commits US$100,000,000 to help Haiti recover from the 2010 earthquake, while calling on former American Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton to assist. January 16 – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and USAID Director Rajiv Shah travel to Haiti. January 17 – President Obama travels to Boston, Massachusetts to campaign for Martha Coakley in the Senate special election. January 18 – President Obama participates in community service activities to honor slain civil rights hero Martin Luther King Jr., while also visiting the American Red Cross headquarters and personally submitting his first Twitter update. January 21 – President Obama announces the "Volcker rule" and a host of other proposals for new banking regulation. January 22 – President Obama travels to Elyria, Ohio, visiting the Lorain County Community College and emphasizing his political agenda. January 25 – President Obama hosts the Los Angeles Lakers at the White House for winning the 2009 NBA Finals. January 27 – President Obama delivers his annual State of the Union Address before a joint session of Congress. January 28 – President Obama travels to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, where he met with crew helping with the humanitarian response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake, before holding a town hall meeting at the University of Tampa. January 30 – Former President George H. W. Bush makes a social call on President Obama at the White House.
February
February 1 – President Obama announces his proposal for the fiscal year 2011 federal budget. President Obama answers questions submitted by the public in a live session moderated by Steve Grove of YouTube; the session is broadcast from the White House and on YouTube's CitizenTube channel. February 2 – President Obama travels to Nashua, New Hampshire, touring small businesses before giving a speech at Nashua North High School. February 3 – President Obama hosts a meeting of Governors in the State Dining Room. Afterwards, the President holds a Cabinet-level exercise in crisis-management in preparation for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. February 6 – President Obama speaks at a gathering of the Democratic National Committee's Winter Meeting at the Capitol Hilton in Washington, D.C. The President's motorcade encounters trouble due to the blizzard that affected the region when a snow-laden tree branch fell on a vehicle carrying journalists as it returned to the White House; no one was injured. February 9 – The Obamas host a concert of music from the era of the Civil Rights Movement at the White House to celebrate Black History Month. The concert marks the beginning of the 2010 White House music series. February 10 – President Obama holds an "urban economy summit" in the Oval Office with African-American leaders including Al Sharpton, Benjamin Jealous, and Marc Morial. February 11 – President Obama meets with senior representatives from the March of Dimes charity, discussing the effects of preterm birth. February 16 – President Obama announces $8.3 billion in federal loan guarantees to help Southern Company build two new nuclear reactors in Burke County, Georgia. President Obama also nominates career diplomat and former United States Ambassador to Algeria Robert Ford to be the first United States Ambassador to Syria since 2005. February 18 – President Obama meets with the Dalai Lama in the Map Room at the White House. February 25 – President Obama delivers opening remarks at his bipartisan health care summit at Blair House. President Obama awards the National Medal of Arts and the National Humanities Medal to twenty recipients in a ceremony in the East Room of the White House. February 27 – The White House announces the naming of Julianna Smoot as Deputy Assistant to the President and Social Secretary; Smoot replaces Desirée Rogers. February 28 – President Obama travels to Bethesda, Maryland, for a routine medical examination at the National Naval Medical Center, where he later visits soldiers who were wounded in the Iraq War and the War in Afghanistan.
March March 1 – Speaking at the United States Chamber of Commerce, President Obama announces that $900 million in grants would be given to under-performing schools in America upon acceptance of a reform model. March 2 – Promoting his energy-related jobs proposals, President Obama addresses the faculty and students at the Savannah Technical College in Savannah, Georgia. March 5 – President Obama travels to Arlington, Virginia, discussing his Administration's policy and the economic situation at the headquarters of OPOWER, a corporation producing efficient energy use technology. March 8 – President Obama discusses health care reform at Arcadia University in Glenside. March 10 – President Obama travels to St. Louis, Missouri, where he discusses his plans for health care reform. March 13 – While in Atlanta, Georgia, President Obama details his plans for the overhaul of the American education system. March 19 – President Obama speaks at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, discussing his plans for major health care reform. March 20 – President Obama confers with the Democratic Caucus of the United States House of Representatives, urging members to vote in favor of administration health care reform proposals.
March 23 – The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is signed into law by the President. It is the first major health care reform law enacted in the history of the United States. March 25 – President Obama speaks at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa, where he defends the newly signed Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. March 28 – President Obama makes an unannounced visit to Afghanistan where he meets with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. March 30 – President Obama signs the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 into law at a ceremony at the Alexandria campus of Northern Virginia Community College. President Obama hosts French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, at the White House. March 31 – Speaking at Joint Base Andrews Naval Air Facility, President Obama announces that he will approve oil and gas exploration in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Virginia, ending a moratorium on drilling off the East Coast of the United States.
April April 1 – President Obama holds an hour-long phone conversation with Chinese President Hu Jintao, delaying Air Force One on the tarmac at Andrews Air Force Base for ten minutes after landing. April 4 – The Obama family celebrates Easter at Allen Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Southeast, Washington, D.C., drawing attention to an area with high crime and unemployment rates. April 5 – The Obamas host thousands of families on the White House lawn for the annual White House Easter Egg Roll. President Obama throws the ceremonial first pitch at the Washington Nationals season opener against the Philadelphia Phillies at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., marking the 100th year of the presidential tradition. April 8 – President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sign the latest Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), a "major" nuclear arms control agreement that reduces the nuclear weapons stockpiles of both countries. April 9 – President Obama and Czech President Václav Klaus hold a meeting at Prague Castle. April 10 – President Obama calls Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk to express his condolences following the death of Polish President Lech Kaczyński and others in a plane crash. April 11 – President Obama holds talks at Blair House with heads of state from India, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, and South Africa on the eve of the Nuclear Security Summit that the President is hosting in Washington, D.C. April 12 – President Obama holds bilateral meetings with a number of heads of state—including a high-profile meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao—and hosts a working dinner with foreign government delegations as part of the Nuclear Security Summit that he is hosting. April 13 – President Obama participates in the second and final day of the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, D.C., proclaiming at the conclusion of the gathering that "real progress" was made toward the goal of securing nuclear material worldwide. April 15 – In a major space policy speech at Kennedy Space Center, President Obama outlines his proposal to add $6 billion to NASA's budget over the next five years with funding being used for deep space exploration rather than lunar exploration. In a memorandum to Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, President Obama orders the Department of Health and Human Services to write rules that would prohibit hospitals that receive funding from Medicare or Medicaid from denying visitation privileges on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. April 17 – Due to air travel disruption across Europe after the eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano, the White House cancels plans for President Obama to attend the funeral of Polish President Lech Kaczyński. April 22 – Speaking at Cooper Union in Lower Manhattan, President Obama urges CEOs to back his financial reform proposal and to support regulatory legislation. April 23 – President Obama speaks at a naturalization ceremony for active-duty members of the U.S. military forces in the Rose Garden, strongly criticizing the newly passed Arizona SB1070 measure against illegal immigration, and calling for federal immigration reform. April 23–25 – President and Mrs. Obama are in Asheville, North Carolina for a weekend vacation. April 25 – President Obama meets briefly with Billy Graham at Graham's home in Montreat, North Carolina. President Obama and Vice President Biden travel to Beckley, West Virginia, where they meet with family members of miners killed in the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster; President Obama delivers a eulogy at a service for the 29 miners who died in the mine explosion. April 26 – President Obama welcomes the World Series Champion New York Yankees to the White House to honor their 2009 season. The President also speaks at the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship at the Ronald Reagan Building. April 27 – President Obama travels to Iowa and tours the Siemens Wind Turbine Blade Manufacturing Plant in Fort Madison, Iowa. There the President delivers remarks on how to grow the economy and put Americans back to work. The President also visits a local business in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa and holds a town hall meeting in Indian Hills Community College, Ottumwa, Iowa, spending the night in Des Moines April 28 – President Obama tours a POET Biorefining plant in Macon, Missouri and delivers remarks on rebuilding the economy. The President then tours a local farm and visits with the family that operates the farm in Palmyra, Missouri. Later that afternoon the President delivers remarks on the urgent need to pass Wall Street reform at the Oakley-Lindsay Civic Center in Quincy, Illinois.