US Senator for Illinois Barack Obama (left) walks with Noble Peace Prize winning environmentalist Wangari Mathai (right) ahead of planting a tree in a downtown Nairobi park on Monday, 28 August, 2006. On November 4, 2008, then Democratic Senator Barack Obama (Illinois), at age 47, earned 365 electoral votes and nearly 53 of the popular vote in a wider-than-expected margin of victory against Republican Senator John McCain in the US Presidential elections. He became the 44th president of the United States and the first African American to be elected to office. FILE PHOTO | STEPHEN MORRISON | EPA