1. Barack Obama is the first Illinois based President since Lincoln. Interestingly Ronald Reagan was Illinois born while Lincoln was born in Kentucky.
2. Last 4 Presidents to become Senators: Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy and Truman.
3. New Senators will be appointed in place of Obama and Biden. Obama was preceded by Peter Fitzgerald. Others to hold his Senate seat include: Carol Mosely Braun, and Everett Dirksen. Biden was preceded by J. Caleb Boggs. His Senate seat was previously held by: Daniel Rodney and Coleman Dupont.
4. Obama won Massachusetts home of John Kerry, lost Tenesee and Arkansas home states of Gore and Clinton, also lost Georgia Jimmmy Carters home state. South Dakota home of 1972 candidate George Mcgovern also went Republican.
5. Obama volunteers made 1,053,791 get out the vote calls on election day. This equates to 1.6 percent of his total votes.
6. Obama wore a Chicago White Sox cap on his 1st day as President-elect.
7. Obama's undergraduate degree is from Columbia. Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt studied law there. Obama has a Harvard law degree.
8. Obama's chief strategist David Axelrod was a Chicago Tribune reporter. Losing VP candidate Sarah Palin was a journalis major.
9. Once again the better military record lost. Since 1992 George Bush WW II pilot, Bob Dole WW II soldier, 2000 Al Gore Vietnam Veteran, 2004 John Kerry decorated Vietnam veteran and now Joh McCain Vietnam prisoner of war have lost presidential elections. Obama was 14 when Vietnam ended.
10. Obama was born in 1961. Other '61ers include: Rae Down Chong, Scott Baio, Wayne Gretzky and Amy Sedaris.
This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that's on my mind tonight is about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She's a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing -- Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.
She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn't vote for two reasons -- because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.
And tonight, I think about all that she's seen throughout her century in America -- the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can't, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.
At a time when women's voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes we can.
When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs and a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can.
When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes we can.
She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that "We Shall Overcome." Yes we can.
A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination. And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change. Yes we can.
America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves -- if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we have made?