OBAMA'S EARLIEST MEMORIES

Democratic senator Barack Obama has been elected the first black president of the United States. "It's been a long time coming, but tonight... change has come to America," the president-elect told a jubilant crowd at a park in Chicago.

The son of a Kenyan man, Barack Obama Senior, and a white woman, Ann Dunham, from Kansas, Mr Obama was born on 4 August 1961 in Hawaii.
When Mr Obama was a young child, his father had the chance to study at Harvard but there was no money for the family to accompany him. Mr Obama Senior later returned to Kenya alone, where he worked as a government economist, and the couple divorced.
When Mr Obama was six, his mother married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian, and the family moved to Jakarta.
Eventually Mr Obama moved back to Hawaii to live with his grandparents and attend school. He went on to study political science at Columbia University in New York, and then moved to Chicago where he spent three years as a community organiser.
In 1988 he left to attend Harvard Law School, where he became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review.
He married Michelle Robinson, a fellow Harvard Law School graduate, in 1992 and they now have two young daughters, Malia and Sasha.
After Harvard, Mr Obama returned to Chicago to practise civil rights law, representing victims of housing and employment discrimination. He served in the Illinois state senate from 1996 to 2004.
It was in 2004 that he first shot to national - and international - prominence with a speech that stirred the Democratic national convention.
After his US Senate election victory in Illinois a few months later, he became a media darling and one of the most visible figures in Washington, with two best-selling books to his name.
The senator attended the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago for almost two decades, but broke away from it in May 2008 after controversial sermons by Trinity preachers hit the headlines.
Mr Obama clinched the Democratic nomination following a battle against former first lady Hillary Clinton - a contest that gripped the US from January to June 2008. Speaking after it became clear that he had won, Mr Obama talked of a "defining moment for our nation".

Mr Obama broke all records for fundraising during his campaign by using the internet to collect huge numbers of small donations. He has also demonstrated the ability to attract crowds of more than 100,000 people to his rallies.On the eve of the election Mr Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, died. He had referred to her in some of his most powerful campaign speeches. Mr Obama said: "She was a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility."

In victory Obama said: "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 added: "The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. But America - I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there."