Photo Gallery The 100-Day Review
Wednesday, April 29, marked the 100th day since Barack Obama's inauguration.
The ceremony on January 20 drew millions of people to Washington ...
... and the president cut a sleek figure with First Lady Michelle Obama at the "Mid-Atlantic Inaugural Ball."
His first act in office was to sign an executive order that would close the US prison at Guantanamo Bay within a year.
He named his former rival, Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State.
On Feb. 17 he signed a $787 million stimulus package, the largest of its kind in American history -- the so-called "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act."
On March 19, he became the first sitting US president to visit a late-night talk show by sitting down with Jay Leno. It wasn't a flawless appearance: Some people criticized him for making an impolitic joke about the Special Olympics.
On March 27, with Hillary Clinton and the administration's Bush-appointed secretary of defense, Robert Gates, Obama announced a new strategy to battle militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Then it was off to Europe. On April 1, the American First Couple met the British Royal Couple, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
Obama was in London to attend the G-20 summit -- his debut on the international stage.
It was a photo opportunity for all world leaders, including Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, center, and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
The whirlwind tour of Europe included a NATO summit on the German-French border.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, right, and his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy welcomed the Obamas in Strasbourg, France...
... and German Chancellor Angela Merkel hosted them in Baden-Baden, Germany.
The NATO alliance is a relic of the Cold War, but it's embroiled in a difficult mission in Afghanistan and the Pakistani tribal areas.
The Obamas then traveled to the Czech Republic, where the new president gave his first foreign policy speech. He announced that Washington would work to reduce the number of nuclear weapons around the world.
Obama also flew to Turkey, where he met Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He disappointed some observers by not pushing the Turkish government to label the massacre of Armenians a century ago as "genocide."
The president then made an unannounced visit to a US base in Iraq.
A long search for a First Pet ended in mid-April when the Obamas trotted out Bo, a six-month-old Portuguese water dog.
At an annual Summit of the Americas, in Trinidad, Obama announced a willingness to thaw Washington's long-frozen relations with Cuba -- and even shook hands with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
"Our New Neighbor is Hot": The glossy Washingtonian magazine topped things off by running a beefcake photo of the young president on its May cover.
