His family originally from Rize, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was born on Feb. 26, 1954 in Istanbul.
One of four siblings, Erdogan’s father is Ahmet Erdoğan and mother is Tenzile Erdoğan.
Erdoğan finished primary school in 1965.
He entered the only imam-hatip high school, Istanbul imam-hatip high school, in 1966.
He started to play football at the Erok Sports Club and continued playing at the Camialtı Sports Club in the amateur league.
He graduated from the imam-hatip high school in 1973. He was not able to enter many universities because he had graduated from an imam-hatip high school. He took up extra classes and received a diploma from Eyüp High School to get around this.
He was accepted into the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences at Marmara University. With his admission into university, he had entered a higher league, at the same time he was transferred to the IETT Sports Club.
He was chosen as representative for the youth branch of the National Salvation Party in 1976. The same year, he was chosen as the director of the party’s youth branches.
10 On July 4, 1978, Erdoğan and Emine Gülbaran were married.
Fulfilling his duties until 1980, Erdoğan worked as a consultant and a senior staff member for companies in the private sector during the Sept. 12 period.
Entering politics with the Welfare Party, founded in 1983, Erdoğan became head of the Beyoğlu district for the Welfare Party in 1984, the party’s Istanbul provincial chairman in 1985 and a member of the Welfare Party Central Decision and Executive Board .
He was elected mayor of Istanbul in 1994 with 25.19 percent of the vote.
16 He was sentenced to four months prison in 1997 after reading Ziya Gökalp’s poem “A Soldier’s Prayer”, written for the Balkan war in 1912, during a speech in Siirt on Dec. 12, 1997.
18 He was among the founders of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), founded on Aug. 14, 2001, and was elected party chairman.
He entered Parliament as a deputy for Siirt during the by-elections on March 9, 2003, and became prime minister on March 14, 2003.
Erdoğan achieved a great victory as he formed the Republic’s 60th government and won a vote of confidence on July 22, 2007, with 46.6 percent of the vote as AK Party chairman.
24 In 2007, the way for the people electing a president was cleared, and Erdoğan became president in 2014 with 51.79 percent of the vote.
Erdoğan achieved a bigger victory by receiving 49.8 percent of the vote and formed the 61st government on June 12, 2011.
28 On Sunday, Aug. 10, 2014, he was the first president to be elected by the people and he became the country’s 12th president.
