President Barack Obama set out to change America.

As he lifted his hand to take the oath of office to become the 44th president of the United States in 2009, Obama brought a sense of hope and change and promised big ideas.

“There are some who question the scale of our ambitions, who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans,” Obama said in his first inaugural address. “Their memories are short, for they have forgotten what this country has already done, what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

“What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them, that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply."

Obama already came into office with a hand tied behind his back: a recession that was slipping deeper the day he took office.

He needed a Congress willing to work with him. In spite of, or perhaps because of, his pushes for change, he helped inspire new movements that pledged to fight his agenda until he was out of office and beyond.

We take a look at eight major facets of Obama’s time in office.

Stimulus

The recession was in full swing when Obama took office in January 2009. The unemployment rate was at 7.8 percent. When he signed the stimulus package on Feb. 17, 2009, the unemployment rate climbed to more than 8 percent and continued to climb, going as high as 10 percent in October 2009 before slowly beginning to fall.

The stimulus bill did not give Obama everything he wanted, even with Democrats in control of both Congressional houses. He wanted to spend more than $800 billion, with a big portion on massive projects, especially those that were “shovel ready” — bridges, roads, waterworks and other infrastructure projects.

The original projected cost of the bill was to be $787 billion over 10 years, but government economics have revised that to $831 billion. About half of the bill went into tax cuts to placate Republicans. But no Republicans voted for the bill in the House, and only three in the Senate. They argued the bill offered too little stimulus for too much debt.

Economists argue over how much impact the stimulus had on the country. Most agree it averted a depression, and a majority say unemployment is lower than it would have been without the bill. But economists are split on whether the benefits outweighed the costs.

Either way, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act did save or create an average of 1.6 million jobs a year for four years. According to the White House, it improved 42,000 miles of road, fixed or replaced 2,700 bridges and bought more than 12,000 transit vehicles. There were projects to clean up water supplies and bring broadband internet into rural areas.

Affordable Care Act

Obama will forever be linked with health care. It’s not just that the Affordable Care Act is better known snarkily, and in some cases derisively, as “Obamacare.” It’s the law he bet the political farm on, battled on, compromised on and then spent the next six years trying to convince the American public that it was a good thing.

For the president, it was personal. In speeches, he talked about his mother’s struggles with insurance companies while she battled cancer. While some asked him to hold off and fix the economy first, Obama was insistent that health care reform would lead to economic reform.

The act changed health care in America: It ended lifetime and annual caps on coverage; ended denials and reduced coverage based on pre-existing conditions; allowed children to stay on their parents’ insurance until they are 26; and required coverage for preventative care and maternity and newborn care.

But the mandate requiring people get insurance through an employer, privately or through insurance exchanges and marketplaces, rankled people and health care industries. Insurance companies changed or dumped coverage based on new regulations, causing some to lose coverage, and backed out of the exchanges or raised premiums.

Obama and supporters argued that the bill was not perfect. Not everyone knew they could get subsidies to afford coverage, and not every state had a marketplace.

House Republicans have attempted to repeal the ACA dozens of times over the past six years. Now, with new leadership in D.C., Republicans have already passed measures to begin the repeal of the ACA despite a clear plan for a replacement.

Osama bin Laden

The Al-Qaeda leader who helped orchestrate the 9/11 attacks, among countless others, finally tumbled off the FBI’s most wanted list under Obama’s watch. The decision to go after bin Laden was not taken lightly. The president held five meetings in the months before to go over the intelligence. On May 1, 2011, Obama and his team watched as U.S. Special Forces stormed a compound in Pakistan. Navy Seals went in early in the morning, killing bin Laden, three other men (including one of his sons) and a woman were also killed.

“On nights like this one, we can say to those families who have lost loved ones to al-Qaeda’s terror: Justice has been done,” Obama told America in a late-night address.

DACA and DAPA

Despite attempts, comprehensive immigration reform was not achieved in Obama’s time, a big promise he made when he first ran for office. Over 2 million illegal immigrants have been deported under his watch through 2014 (the number is likely higher, but those are the latest numbers from the Department of Homeland Security).

The president chose to go around Congress with an executive order approving Deferred Action for Child Arrivals (DACA) in 2012. The measure allows people who came to the U.S. illegally as children who met several criteria to get deferred action for two years, subject to renewal. They were also eligible for work authorization.

The White House says some 740,000 requests have been approved by DACA, with another 526,000 individuals renewed under the program.

The president also signed Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA), an executive order that extended protections to illegal immigrants whose parents are either U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents. The federal courts blocked the executive order.

Executive orders and government regulations

It’s commonly thought that Obama has greatly abused the executive-orders privilege. Republican opponents such as Florida Sen. Marco Rubio accused him of trying to be a king. In 2014, frustrated with Republicans in Congress, Obama announced he would use executive orders, when possible, to get around Congress and institute new rules.

The president has issued 275 executive orders as of Jan. 13, 2017. That’s less than President George W. Bush (291) and President Bill Clinton (364) and fewer than President Ronald Reagan (381). In fact, Obama ranks 16th in executive orders since President Abraham Lincoln.

Aside from DACA and DAPA, the president has used executive orders for:

  • Military veterans can design their own headstones
  • Food label overhauling
  • Making more workers eligible for overtime pay
  • Women being allowed to buy emergency contraception without a prescription
  • Fines for airlines that left passengers stranded on domestic flights for more than 3 hours
  • Stricter environmental standards
  • New standards for the welfare of farm animals
  • Raising the minimum wage for federal contract workers
  • Increased workplace protections for all workers at businesses that held federal contracts

Some of these rules have been blocked, and President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to repeal many, but it will change the way government runs for years.

Race in America

Just by his very presence in the White House, Obama and his family signified change.

As first lady Michelle Obama often remarked in speeches in 2016, her family woke up every day in a home built in part by slaves.

After his historic election, some insinuated that America was now “post-racial.” But many would say, eight years later, that that is far from true.

The so-called “Beer Summit” in 2009 was the president’s first foray into racial conflicts. In a news conference, Obama said officers in Cambridge, Massachusetts, acted “stupidly” when they arrested Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. for trying to enter his own house. The remark led to immediate backlash because the arresting police officer was white. The president hosted Gates and Sgt. James Crowley to the White House Rose Garden for a discussion over a beer. Some black leaders derided the event as demeaning, accusing the president of backing down.

Then, in 2012, Obama was criticized over remarks made regarding the shooting of Trayvon Martin in Sanford. The president called the shooting a tragedy, and said “but my main message is to the parents of Trayvon Martin. If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon." The statement was derided by those who felt George Zimmerman was justified in shooting Martin.

Then came Ferguson, Missouri and the shooting of Michael Brown by police. The riots that followed and the formation of the Black Lives Matter movement tore asunder any illusions of a post-racial America. The president found himself caught between a black community who felt ignored and a law enforcement community angered by his called for changing police tactics.

The president brought Black Lives Matter leaders and law enforcement together for a meeting at the White House last July, but after four hours, the president acknowledged that they had a long way to go.

In 2014, Obama launched My Brother’s Keeper, an initiative to inspire boys and young men of color to “reach their full potential.” Obama said he will continue working with My Brother’s Keeper after he is out of office.

Cuba

After more than 50 years of hostility, the president announced a new policy toward the island nation in 2014.

It began with America rescinding Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism and continued with embassies opening in the two countries, expansion of travel to Cuba, and the president’s visit in March 2016, making him the first president to visit Cuba since 1928. This month, the president ended America’s long-standing "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy regarding migrants coming to Cuba.

For those who escaped the beginning of Fidel Castro’s regime 50 years ago, the president’s policies were horrifying. Even with the death of Fidel Castro last year, the regime is still in power under brother Raul.

Space

President Obama’s legacy in the space program is still reshaping Brevard County.

In 2004, President George W. Bush announced the retirement of the space shuttle fleet as part of the development of a new spacecraft that would bring us to the moon by 2020 and one day to Mars.

The aging shuttle fleet was expected to retire after the International Space Station was finished, which happened in 2011.

In 2009, the Obama administration commissioned the Review of United Space Flight Plans Committee (also known as the Augustine Commission) to review the country’s spaceflight plans after the space shuttle was retired. The committee, made up of former astronauts, college professors and business industry leaders, concluded that the Constellation program was over-budget, under-funded, behind schedule and possibly dangerous. Congress refused to fund the project, and Obama decided to remove it from the program.

The president’s new space plan, released in 2010, created the commercial spaceflight program.

NASA began contracting with companies such as SpaceX, Boeing and BlueOrigin to create spacecraft that would transport astronauts into space in low-Earth orbit.

The president also expanded funding for the International Space Station, extending the ISS's mission through at least 2020 and beyond.

The plan also called for a heavy-lift launch vehicle to replace the failed Constellation program.

The president called for manned flights beyond low Earth orbit in the 2020s, with plans to go to Mars in the 2030s. In the immediate wake of the space shuttle’s retirement, thousands of jobs were lost on the Space Coast. But as NASA and private companies continue to grow, jobs are coming back.

WATCH: President Obama's Farewell Address