Barack Obama has been elected the 44th President of the United States and will be the country's 1st African-American chief executive. Obama received 338 electoral votes to McCain's 161, well above the 270 votes needed to win.  A crowd of 125,000 supporters showed up for the victory rally in Grant Park with thousands more outside.  President-elect Obama will assume the presidency on January 20.

Map of electoral votes by state.

Photos of the Obama victory rally.      

(For an update on the electoral votes, which have changed since Nov 5, when this post appeared, visit http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/) 

*Design Dump. Untitled (Obama Campaign Poster).  2008 <http://flickr.com/photos/47756488@N00/1130747205/>. 

Today, the American people will elect a new president and vice president. Change is in the air! And it's all any one can talk about. No matter what the outcome of today's election, it will be historic.

Of course, our first president was George Washington, elected in 1789, and tonight, we will elect the 44th. Some other election fun facts:

• The 19th Admendment gave women the right to vote in 1920
• 18 year olds were first allowed to vote in 1971
• William Howard Taft, our 27th president, kept a cow at the White House 

Election officials are also predicting that a record number of people will vote in this 2008 presidential election, and this fact alone makes me proud of my fellow citizens today. Wait. What's that? You think your vote doesn't matter? Before you decide not to hustle down to your polling place, remember that in 2000, Bush beat Gore by just 5 electoral votes. That's the difference in winning or losing just one or two states. By the way, polling closes tonight at 7:00pm CST.