Senator Barrack Obama won the historic election to become the first Black person to become the President of the United States of America.

“It’s been a long time coming, but tonight… change has come to America,” the president-elect told a jubilant crowd at a victory rally in Chicago.

His rival John McCain accepted defeat, saying “I deeply admire and commend” Mr Obama. He called on his supporters to lend the next president their goodwill.

Mr Obama appeared with his family, and his running mate Joe Biden, before a crowd of tens of thousands in Grant Park, Chicago.

Many people in the vast crowd, which stretched back far into the Chicago night, wept as Mr Obama spoke.

“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,” he said.

He said he had received an “extraordinarily gracious” call from Mr McCain

Barack Obama drew on support from Hispanics, young voters and women to score victories in New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado ? three Western states that voted for President Bush in 2004.

Obama also contributed to an Election Day sweep in New Mexico that put the state’s entire congressional delegation in Democratic hands for the first time in 40 years.

Most of California was solid Obama territory Tuesday, but a swath of southwestern Riverside County remained resolutely in the red.

Besides winning the presidency, the Democrats tightened their grip on Congress.

The nation is in the midst of the greatest economic crisis since the 1930s. Unemployment now stands at 6.1 per cent, and economists predict it could go as high as 7.5 per cent in 2009. Consumers are pessimistic about the future and cutting back on borrowing and spending, the lifeblood of America’s economy. A painful recession is looming and in many parts of the country it already has landed with a sickening thud.

Watching election results that showed Barack Obama would be their new commander-in-chief, U.S. soldiers in Iraq said they hoped he would fulfil his promise to bring them home quickly and responsibly.