'This Is Our Moment. This Is Our Time.'

President-elect Barack Obama addressed the country and the world for the first time tonight, vowing to unite a nation beset by trouble at home and abroad, the Chicago Tribune reports. "Change has come to America," Obama told a crowd of tens of thousands at Chicago's Grant Park and millions more watching around the world. "Our stories are singular, but our destinies are shared."

Speaking for just under 20 minutes, Obama praised John McCain and invoked the words of another president from Illinois: "As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, we are not enemies, but friends." The president-elect took the stage with his wife, Michelle, and their daughters, Malia and Sasha, whom their dad thanked by saying, "You have earned the new puppy that's coming with us to the White House."
(More Election 2008 stories.)