Improbable journey, impossible outcome, the World reacts

Obama's victory was both broad and deep; he won hotly contested states in every corner of the country from New Hampshire in the Northeast, and likely Virginia in the South to Ohio in the Midwest and New Mexico in the West.

A man of mixed race has now reached the pinnacle of U.S. power only two generations since the end of Jim Crow

Obama's resounding victory over Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) repudiates an unpopular incumbent and an ongoing war, shifts national leadership to a new generation and provides dramatic proof to the world of the American ideal of opportunity for all.

The announcement came at 10pm Chicago time. Barack Obama was declared America’s next President. The vast sea of humanity packed into the city’s Grant Park erupted in a deafening roar that must have been audible ten miles out in Lake Michigan.

McCain says Americans "have spoken clearly"