By By Adam Prestridge
Tuesday night's General Election will go down in history as one of the most highly anticipated presidential elections in the nation's more than 200-year history.
Democratic Sen. Barack Obama convincingly defeated Republican Sen. John McCain to become the first African-American elected to the Oval Office.
A crowd of more than 125,000 supporters gathered at Grant Park in Chicago late Tuesday evening as Obama addressed the nation for the first time as president-elect.
"If there is anyone out there who doubts that America is a place where anything is 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," Obama said.
McCain took an early lead in electoral votes Tuesday evening, but that lead was short lived as the polls in the eastern states closed favoring Obama. Around 9:30 p.m., McCain looked to make a night of it with several big wins in southern states, but Obama captured California and Florida around 10:30 p.m. to claim the 270 electoral votes needed to claim victory. Wednesday morning, Obama had two times as many electoral votes as McCain with 349 to McCain's 173.
"Young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled, Americans have sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of red states and blue states," he said during his address. "We have been and always will be the United States of America. It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America."