During the past year, a number of conspiracy theorists have suggested that President Obama was not born in the United States. If this were true — which it is not — he would not be eligible to be the U.S. president, who must be a natural-born American.

On July 27, 2009, Hawaii State Health Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino confirmed that Obama was born in the U.S. state of Hawaii, stating:

I … have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawaii State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen. I have nothing further to add to this statement or my original statement issued in October 2008 over eight months ago ….

In 2008, FactCheck.org examined a copy of Obama’s birth certificate held by the Obama campaign, verifying that it was a real, official document.

Nine days after Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on August 4, 1961, the Honolulu Advertiser included among its birth notices, “Mr. and Mrs. Barack H. Obama of 6085 Kalanianaole Highway, son, Aug. 4,” which it reprinted in its Aug. 17, 2009 issue. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin printed the identical birth notice one day later, on August 14, 1961. Its former managing editor Dave Shapiro says, “Those were listings that came over from the state Department of Health. They would send the same thing to both papers.”

Interestingly, FactCheck.org determined that Obama was originally both a U.S. citizen and a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies from 1961 to 1963 (because his father was from Kenya, which gained its independence from the British Empire in 1963), then both a U.S. and Kenyan citizen from 1963 to 1982, and solely a U.S. citizen after that.