Barack Hussein Obama has swept away the last racial barrier in United States politics to be elected the country's 44th president and its first black chief executive.
The election of Senator Obama amounted to a national catharsis: the repudiation of a historically unpopular Republican President and his economic and foreign policies, and an embrace of Senator Obama's call for a change in the direction and tone of the country.
But it was just as much a strikingly symbolic moment in the evolution of the nation's fraught racial history, a breakthrough that would have seemed unthinkable just two years ago.
Senator Obama, 47, a first-term senator from Illinois, defeated Senator John McCain, of Arizona, 72, a former prisoner of war making his second bid for the presidency.
To the very end, Senator McCain's campaign was eclipsed by an opponent who was nothing short of a phenomenon, drawing huge crowds epitomised by the tens of thousands of people who turned out to hear Senator Obama's victory speech in Grant Park, Chicago.
Senator McCain also fought the headwinds of a relentlessly hostile political environment, weighted down with the baggage left to him by President George W. Bush and an economic collapse that took place in the middle of the general election campaign.
''If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy: tonight is your answer,'' Senator Obama said, standing before a huge wooden lectern with a row of American flags at his back, casting his eyes over a crowd that stretched far into the Chicago night.
''It's been a long time coming,'' the President-elect added, ''but tonight, because of what we did on this date, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.''
Senator McCain had delivered his concession speech under clear skies on the lush lawn of the Arizona Biltmore Hotel, in Phoenix, where he and his wife had held their wedding reception. The crowd reacted with scattered boos as he offered his congratulations to Senator Obama and saluted the significance of the moment.
''This is a historic election, and I recognise the significance it has for African-Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs tonight,'' Senator McCain said.
Not only did Senator Obama capture the presidency but he led his party to sharp gains in Congress. This puts Democrats in control of the House, the Senate and the White House for the first time since 1995, when Bill Clinton was in office.
Senator Obama had won 27 states, including his home turf of Illinois, for 338 electoral votes well beyond the 270 votes he needed to win. Senator McCain had won 17 states, for 156 votes, but had not broken out of the Republican heartland and the South.
The day shimmered with history as voters began lining up before dawn, hours before the polls opened.
As Senator Obama passed milestone after milestone Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Iowa and New Mexico people rolled spontaneously into the streets to celebrate what many described, with perhaps overstated if understandable exhilaration, as a new era in a country where just 143 years ago Senator Obama, as a black man, could have been owned as a slave.
For Republicans, especially the conservatives who have dominated the party for nearly three decades, the night represented a bitter setback and left them contemplating where they now stand in American politics.
Senator Obama and his expanded Democratic majority on Capitol Hill now face the task of governing the country through a difficult period: the likelihood of a deep and prolonged recession, and two wars. He took note of those circumstances in a speech notable for its sobriety and the absence of a triumphalism he might understandably have displayed on a night when he won an Electoral College landslide.
''The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep,'' Senator Obama said, his audience hushed and attentive, with some, including the Reverend Jesse Jackson, wiping tears from their eyes.
The roster of defeated Republicans included some notable party moderates, such as Senator John Sununu of New Hampshire and Representative Christopher Shays of Connecticut, and signalled that the Republican conference convening early next year in Washington will be not only smaller but more conservative.
Senator Obama will come into office after an election in which he laid out clear promises: to cut taxes for most Americans, to get the United States out of Iraq in a fast and orderly fashion and to expand health care.
In recognition of the difficult transition he faces, given the economic crisis, Senator Obama is expected to begin filling White House jobs as early as this week.
The Democratic aspirant defeated Senator McCain in Ohio, a central battleground in American politics, despite a huge effort that brought Senator McCain and his running mate, Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, back there repeatedly. Senator Obama lost the state decisively to New York senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primary.
New York Times
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