This year's US presidential election was always going to make history. It was the first open contest for more than 50 years, with neither the incumbent nor the vice-president running. The campaign began earlier than at any time in the recent past and went on for longer, giving more states than usual a say in the primaries. And it was the first time a woman had a realistic chance of winning the nomination for a major party.

In the event, Hillary Clinton failed to win the Democratic nomination. But that is about the only boundary this epic contest has not breached. If the Republicans win, John McCain will be the oldest president to be inaugurated, and Sarah Palin the first female vice-president. But the most epoch-making result of all would be a victory for Barack Obama, the first African American to win his party's nomination and now forecast to become the first black US president.

In contemplating such a result, it is worth recalling how many barriers the first-term Senator for Illinois has already shattered. Less than 150 years since the abolition of slavery, less than 60 years since Rosa Parks refused to sit at the back of the Alabama bus, less than 50 years since the enforced desegregation of southern schools, and a bare four decades after the heyday of the civil rights movement, the son of a white American woman and an African man is within touching distance of the country's highest office. It is a tribute to the opportunities afforded by American society, and to the ambition of the man, that this has been possible.

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