U.S. voters sounded the likely death knell of President Bush?s ill-fated excursion into the quagmire of Iraq Tuesday while electing the nation?s first female president and first black vice-president in a presidential election many historians are calling the most significant since the 1860 contest that brought Abraham Lincoln to power and precipitated the Civil War.

The historic Democratic ticket of Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois grabbed 279 electoral votes and 53 percent of the popular vote on their way to a sound defeat of the Republican pairing of Sen. John McCain and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. (Rodham was married to former U.S. president and “Dancing With the Stars” winner Bill Clinton from 1975 until late 2007, when the couple agreed to a no-fault divorce.)