Stigmata

Stigmata are bodily marks, sores, or sensations of pain in locations corresponding to the crucifixion wounds of Jesus. The term originates from the line at the end of Saint Paul’s Letter to the Galatians where he says, “I bear on my body the stígmata of Jesus” – stigmata is the plural of the Greek word στίγμα, stígma, a mark or brand such as might have been used for identification of an animal or slave. An individual bearing stigmata is referred to as a stigmatic.

The causes of stigmata may vary from case to case, though supernatural causes have never been proven. Stigmata are primarily associated with the Roman Catholic faith. Many reported stigmatics are members of Catholic religious orders. The majority of reported stigmatics are female.

The first well-documented case and the first to be accepted by Church authorities as authentic, was that of Saint Francis of Assisi (1182–1226), who first experienced stigmata in La Verna, Italy, in 1224.

In the century after the death of St. Francis, more than 20 additional cases of stigmata were reported. Stigmata have continued to be reported since, with over 300 cases by the end of the 19th century.

In the 20th century, the number of cases increased dramatically; over 500 cases have now been recorded. In modern times, increasing numbers of ordinary people as opposed to the usual mystics or members of religious orders, have began to report stigmata. Although rarer, cases have been reported among non-Catholic Christians, including a young black Baptist girl.

The first written record of a woman to have received stigmata is in the Medieval Codex Iuliacensis, circa 1320–1350, reporting the stigmata of Blessed Christina von Stommeln (d. 1312), whose relics rest in the Propsteikirche in Jülich, near Aachen. It is claimed that one can still see marks from the crown of thorns on Bl. Christina’s skull, which is publicly displayed during the octave beginning every 6 November in Jülich.

Cases of stigmata take various forms. Many show some or all of the five Holy Wounds that were, according to the Bible, inflicted on Jesus during his crucifixion: wounds in the wrists and feet, from nails, and in the side, from a lance. Some stigmatics display wounds to the forehead similar to those caused by the crown of thorns. Other reported forms include tears of blood or sweating blood, wounds to the back as from scourging, or wounds to the shoulder as from bearing the cross. In addition, in some cases lashes on the back can be witnessed.

Some stigmatics claim to feel the pain of wounds with no external marks; these are referred to as invisible stigmata. In other claims, stigmata are accompanied by extreme pain. Some stigmatics’ wounds do not appear to clot, and stay fresh and uninfected. The blood from the wounds is said, in some cases, to have a pleasant, perfumed odor, known as the Odour of Sanctity.

Individuals who have obtained the stigmata are many times described as ecstatics. At the time of receiving the stigmata they often have a mystical experience or a vision of Christ. In more recent times an individual’s stigmata is reported to heal within a few hours of its reception. Blood pours from the individual’s wounds for unspecified amounts of time and suddenly dries up, and the wound is healed. Some individuals with stigmata in the past sought medical attention, but neither remedies nor medical treatment of any other sort could cure their wounds. Stigmatics, such as St. Francis were affected by the stigmata for an extended period of time; however, the wounds never rotted or possessed a rank odor or became infected. Reported stigmatics are usually devout Roman Catholics. The wounded area is most likely to heal in less than 2 hours leaving no mark or trace of a wound.

Some famous stigmatics are :

• Saint Francis of Assisi (1181-1226)
• Saint Catherine of Siena (1347-1380)
• Saint Rita of Cascia (1381-1457)
• Blessed Lucia Brocadelli of Narni (1476-1544)
• Saint John of God (1495-1550)
• Saint Catherine of Ricci (1522-1590)
• Saint Marie of the Incarnation (1566-1618)
• Saint Veronica Giuliani (1660-1727)
• Sister Therese Margaret
• Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824)
• Louise Lateau (1850-1883)
• Sister Mariam Thresia (1876-1926)
• Saint Gemma Galgani (1878-1903)
• Saint Pio of Pietrelcina (aka Padre Pio; 1887-1968)
• Therese Neumann (1898-1962)
• Marthe Robin (1902-1981)
• Saint Faustina Kowalska (1905-1938)
• Zlatko Sudac (born 1971)
• Haile Selassie (of the Rastafari religion)
• Marie de Moerl (1812-868)

Of these

Marie de Moerl spent her life at Kaltern, Tyrol (1812-68). At the age of twenty she became an ecstatic, and ecstasy was her habitual condition for the remaining thirty-five years of her life. She emerged from it only at the command, sometimes only mental, of the Franciscan who was her director, and to attend to the affairs of her house, which sheltered a large family. Her ordinary attitude was kneeling on her bed with hands crossed on her breast, and an expression of countenance which deeply impressed spectators. At twenty-two she received the stigmata. On Thursday evening and Friday these stigmata shed very clear blood, drop by drop, becoming dry on the other days. Thousands of persons saw Marie de Moerl, among them Görres (who describes his visit in his “Mystik” II, xx), Wiseman, and Lord Shrewsbury, who wrote a defence of the ecstatic in his letters published by “The Morning Herald” and “The Tablet” (cf. Boré, op. cit. infra).

Louise Lateau spent her life in the village of Bois d’Haine, Belgium (1850-83). The graces she received were disputed even by some Catholics, who as a general thing relied on incomplete or erroneous information, as has been established by Canon Thiery (“Examen de ce qui concerne Bois d’Haine”, Louvain, 1907). At sixteen she devoted herself to nursing the cholera victims of her parish, who were abandoned by most of the inhabitants. Within a month she nursed ten, buried them, and in more than one instance bore them to the cemetery. At eighteen she became an ecstatic and stigmatic, which did not prevent her supporting her family by working as a seamstress. Numerous physicians witnessed her painful Friday ecstasies and established the fact that for twelve years she took no nourishment save weekly communion. For drink she was satisfied with three or four glasses of water a week. She never slept, but passed her nights in contemplation and prayer, kneeling at the foot of her bed.

St. Pio of Pietrelcina (Padre Pio)

No case of stigmata is known to have occurred before the thirteenth century, when the depiction of the crucified Jesus in Western Christiandom emphasized his humanity.

In his paper Hospitality and Pain, Christian theologian Ivan Illich states: “Compassion with Christ… is faith so strong and so deeply incarnate that it leads to the individual embodiment of the contemplated pain.” His thesis is that stigmata result from exceptional poignancy of religious faith and desire to associate oneself with the suffering Messiah.

In 1998, Edward Harrison suggested that there was no single mechanism whereby the marks of stigmata were produced. He found no evidence from a study of contemporary cases that the marks were supernatural in origin. However marks of natural origin need not be hoaxes, he concluded. Some stigmatics marked themselves in attempt to suffer with Christ as a form of piety. Others marked themselves accidentally and their marks were noted as stigmata by witnesses. Often marks of human origin produced profound and genuine religious responses. Dr Harrison also noted that the male to female ratio of stigmatics which for many centuries had been of the order of 7 to 1, had changed over the last 100 years to a ratio of 5:4. Appearance of stigmata frequently coincided with times when issue of authority loomed large in the church. What was significant was that early stigmatics were not predominantly women, but that they were non-ordained. Having stigmata gave them direct access to the body of Christ without requiring the permission of the church through the Eucharist. Only in the last century have priests been stigmatized. There is currently a cluster of cases in the United States.

From the records of St. Francis’ physical ailments and symptoms modern doctors believe they know what health problems plagued the holy man. Doctors believe that he had an eye ailment known as trachoma, but also had quartan malaria. Quartan malaria causes the liver, spleen, and stomach to be infected causing the victim intense pain. One complication of quartan malaria occasionally seen around Francis’ time period is known as purpura. Purpura is a purple hemorrhage of blood into the skin. Purpuras usually occur symmetrically, which means each hand and foot would have been affected equally. If this were the case of St. Francis he would have been afflicted by ecchymoses, an exceedingly large purpura. The purple spots of blood may have been punctured while in the wilderness and therefore appear as an open wound like that of Christ’s. This is not historically supported, only a speculation by some present day physicians.

Mystical contemplation can induce bodily stigmata in any meditative tradition, which need not necessarily be Christian.

• Among the Waraw of the Orinoco Delta, a contemplator of tutelary spirits may mystically induce the development of “openings in the palms of his hands.” These tutelary spirits are presented by the “itiriti snake.” Francis of Assisi was said to be endowed with his stigmata by a Seraph. A seraph (an angelic being with three sets of wings) is literally translated as “burning one,” however “srap” is a word associated with snakes; and so, some mistake seraphim as serpent guardians (a mistaken connection to the “itiriti snake”)

• Among the Mapuche of south-central Chile, where a machi (mystic) may contemplate a filew (helper-spirit), there was a case of a “girl who had a machi calling but who was being punished by her filew because she had not yet been initiated. The girl’s feet bled with open sores, and she went into an altered state of consciousness frequently and uncontrollably for hours on end.”

• Buddhist “stigmata” are regularly indicated in Buddhist art.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigmata

http://www.catholic.org/saints/Stigmata.php

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I`m curious about the truth of this topic, I`ll searching for some reliable and private resources …

Any suggestion or comment welcomed.

Somali pirates build up defences after making ransom demand

.

.

.

.

.

.

MOGADISHU (AFP) — Somali pirates built up their defences around a captured Saudi Arabian super-tanker Friday after demanding a 25 million dollar ransom.

As foreign navies sent warships to Somalia’s dangerous waters and shipping companies sought alternative routes, extra clan militia and other fighters were brought in at the pirate lair of Harardhere, residents said.

“Some of them are inside the town and others are taking shelter in a nearby village and can be called if need be,” local resident Mohamed Awale told AFP. He said the fighters had come from neighbouring Gulgudud and Mudug regions.

Local militia and hardline Shebab fighters also arrived in Harardhere in what some residents said was a move to position themselves for a share of any ransom paid.

“There are two armed vehicles belonging to al Shebab. They have reached the town of Harardhere but there are no intentions of attacking the ship from here,” a Harardhere Islamist official told AFP by phone.

“There are many militiamen who have arrived in the town and they want to get a share from the pirates if the ransom is paid,” said Ahmed Abdullahi, a local elder. “They believe this ship is huge and the owner will pay a lot of money.”

The Sirius Star, the biggest ship ever hijacked, and its 100 million dollar load of oil was seized last Saturday and taken to Harardhere, 300 kilometres (180 miles) north of lawless Somalia’s capital Mogadishu.

The pirates on Thursday gave the owners 10 days to pay a 25 million dollar ransom.

Speaking from the tanker, a pirate who identified himself as Mohamed Said threatened “disastrous” consequences should Vela International, shipping arm of the Saudi oil giant Saudi Aramco, fail to comply.

“The Saudis have 10 days to comply, otherwise we will take action that could be disastrous,” he said.

He did not specify the threatened action but the 330-metre (1,000 foot) long tanker is carrying two million barrels of crude oil.

Environmental groups have warned of a huge catastrophe if oil from the super-tanker was released.

Some experts have told AFP that the MV Faina, a Ukrainian ship seized by the same pirates in September with a cargo of tanks and other weaponry, was booby-trapped by the hijackers.

With close to 100 attacks on ships in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean this year, the pirates now pose a growing threat to international trade.

Pirates with no confirmed links to bigger organisations and relatively modest means have seized ships of all sizes and in an ever-growing area.

Two speedboats with pirates armed with Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-launchers seized the Saudi tanker in 16 minutes on Saturday, according to a military report obtained by AFP.

The United States said it would seek support at the United Nations for a resolution to tighten international measures against Somali pirates.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said he was opposed to any negotiations with pirates.

“Like terrorism, it is an evil that has to be eradicated,” Prince Saud told reporters in Oslo.

In Nairobi, Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed “everything must be done to eradicate piracy.”

Kenyan Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula warned that the current efforts to fight piracy are doomed if they not coordinated.

“It will be difficult to fight this criminal enterprise, we need to have a coordinated approach so that we are not all operating at individual country level because this is no longer an individual country issue,” he said.

The Indian frigate INS Tabar, one of dozens of warships from several countries protecting commercial shipping lanes in the Gulf of Aden, sank a Somali pirate ship Tuesday after coming under fire.

Russia announced it would send more warships to combat piracy and also called for an international ground military operation to crush piracy.

After the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said the pirates were now “out of control,” Arab nations bordering the Red Sea meting in Cairo on Thursday and pledged cooperation to end the threat — but offered few specifics.

Oslo-based Frontline Ltd, the world’s biggest oil tanker company, said that a more aggressive military approach was needed.

“I think that’s the only solution,” Martin Jensen, the company’s acting chief executive officer told AFP.

Other maritime groups have decided to steer clear of Somalia’s treacherous waters by diverting ships to the Cape of Good Hope, despite the extra delays and costs.

Danish group A.P. Moller-Maersk has ordered some vessels to re-route.

.

.

.

Reference:

.

.

.

Lawyer: Michael Jackson to testify in London

.

.

.

.

.

.

LONDON (Google AP) — Michael Jackson has agreed to appear in person at a London court to respond to a Bahraini sheik’s $7 million lawsuit, the singer’s lawyer said Thursday.

Jackson had asked to testify by a video link from the U.S. because of an unspecified illness. But his lawyer, Robert Englehart, informed the court Thursday that Jackson “has been cleared by his medical advisers to travel in two days’ time.”

The singer is scheduled to give evidence at the High Court on Monday.

Sheik Abdulla bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the second son of the king of Bahrain, says Jackson reneged on a contract for an album, a candid autobiography and a stage play after accepting millions in advances. Jackson claims the money was a gift.

Jackson, 50, and the Bahraini royal first made contact when the King of Pop was fending off accusations of child molestation in California and Al Khalifa offered to help him. Once Jackson was cleared of the charges in June 2005, Al Khalifa invited him to the small, oil-rich Gulf state to escape the media spotlight.

Al Khalifa, an amateur songwriter, says the pair even moved into the same palace to work on music together.

But Jackson dropped the project in 2006, leaving Bahrain and pulling out of the contract. Al Khalifa’s lawyer says the sheik considered the move a betrayal.

The soft-spoken sheik took the witness stand Thursday, agreeing when Jackson’s lawyer described him as a “devoted fan of Western pop music” and an extremely wealthy man.

“I would see myself as somebody who is very fortunate, yes,” said Al Khalifa, 33.

He rejected Englehart’s suggestion that Jackson was emotionally and financially fragile. Part of Jackson’s defense is that the sheik took advantage of his vulnerability and lack of business acumen.

“Michael is an individual who is very switched-on,” Al Khalifa said. “He is a fantastic intellectual.”

“There’s nothing unusual about him?” asked Englehart.

“No,” Al Khalifa said.

The money at issue includes $1 million paid by Al Khalifa into the account of Jackson’s personal assistant, Grace Rwaramba, who is due to give evidence later.

“You are an exceptionally generous person,” Englehart told the sheik.

Al Khalifa replied “thank you,” but denied the $1 million had been meant as a gift.

“To me it was never seen as a gift,” Al Khalifa said. “Many a time he confirmed to me he would pay me back through our venture.”

Al Khalifa says he gave Jackson millions of dollars in all to help shore up his finances and subsidize Jackson’s lifestyle in the small Gulf state — including more than $300,000 for a “motivational guru.”

Al Khalifa’s lawyer, Bankim Thanki, said Al Khalifa considered the money an advance on the profits Jackson would reap from their pop music project.

Jackson’s lawyers are arguing that the musician wasn’t bound by the deal because the contract was signed on behalf of 2 Seas Records, a venture which never got off the ground.

The case is being tried in London by mutual agreement and is due to conclude early next month.

.

.

.

Reference:http://www.google.com/

.

.

.

North Korea to close land border

.

.

.

.

.

.

North Korea has announced that it will close the land border with South Korea from 1 December.

The official Korean Central News Agency made the announcement on Wednesday.

North Korea’s army has told the South “to strictly restrict and cut off all the overland passages” across the heavily fortified border, it said.

If implemented, the move will be a blow to inter-Korean relations which have deteriorated since South Korean President Lee Myung-bak came to office.

And it comes despite some progress in international negotiations over dismantling North Korea’s nuclear programme.

‘Crucial crossroads’

The decision had been taken because “reckless confrontation” from South Korea was “beyond the danger level”, according to the agency.

The KCNA report added: “The South Korean puppet authorities should never forget that the present inter-Korean relations are at the crucial crossroads of existence and total severance.”

South Korean officials said they were checking Wednesday’s announcement, which follows months of frosty relations.

South Korea has funded the Kaesong industrial complex just over the border in the North, and a ban on border crossings would make it very difficult for the plant to continue operating.

Some 30,000 North Koreans workers are employed by South Korean companies at the complex, and jobs there are highly prized.

Relations between the Koreas have become increasingly strained since February when conservative President Lee Myung-bak took office in Seoul, pledging to get tough with Pyongyang over its nuclear weapons programme.

Last month North Korea threatened to reduce the South to rubble unless it stopped activists sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets attached to balloons into the communist state.

Speculation

Despite the hostile turn in inter-Korean relations, North Korea has continued to make progress in six-nation talks over its nuclear programme despite frequent setbacks.

It says it is disabling its main nuclear plant at Yongbyon after the US removed the North from a blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism.

The latest escalation in tension comes amid speculation that North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-il may have suffered from a serious stroke, though the North has insisted he is in good health and still firmly in charge.

.

.

.

Reference:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7723729.stm

.

.

.

Iranian papers praise president’s letter to Obama

.

.

.

.

.

.

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran’s president is attracting some support at home for his message of congratulations to U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, which several newspaper commentaries said Tuesday presented an important opportunity.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s message, sent last Thursday, was the first time an Iranian leader has offered such wishes to the winner of a U.S. presidential election since the two countries broke off relations after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the hostage crisis at the U.S. Embassy.

Most recently, the two nations have been deeply at odds over Iran’s nuclear program and what Washington says is Iran’s support for Shiite militias in Iraq — a charge that Iran denies.

The state-owned Khorshid newspaper said Ahmadinejad’s message “shattered America’s incorrect view” that the Iranian president is not open the world.

The independent Etemaad newspaper said, “The message could create an important opportunity for both sides.”

Another independent newspaper, Etemad-e Melli, reported that Ahmadinejad’s press adviser, Ali Akbar Javanfekr, expected Obama to give “a deserving answer to the message as soon as possible.”

The American president-elect on Friday confirmed having received Ahmadinejad’s letter and said he would review it and “respond appropriately.”

In his first news conference since last week’s election, Obama declined to say Friday what proposals he might pursue in connection with Iran, but called the country’s alleged efforts to develop nuclear weapons unacceptable.

“We have to mount an international effort to prevent that from happening,” Obama said.

Iran says its nuclear program is intended only for peaceful purposes such as energy production.

Ahmadinejad’s outreach to the United States’ next president did have some critics at home among hard-line newspapers and lawmakers who said it made Iran appear weak.

The Iranian president has been under fire recently over the country’s weakening economy.

.

.

.

Reference:http://news.yahoo.com/

.

.

.

YES,Finaly Barack Obama …

.

.

.

.

.

.

Barack Obama made history on 4 November 2008 when he defeated Republican rival John McCain to become the first black president of the United States.

He had already broken new ground in his White House campaign, as the first black candidate to become the presidential choice of either major US party.

To many people, Mr Obama seemed to come from nowhere. Although he had served in the Illinois state senate for eight years, it was only in 2004 that he shot to national prominence, with a speech that stirred the Democratic National Convention.

And it was only in the two years leading up to the election that his name, face and story became known beyond America.

The senator clinched the Democratic nomination after a long and gruelling battle against former first lady Hillary Clinton – a contest that gripped the US from January to June 2008.

In the course of campaigning, Senator Obama broke all records for fundraising, by harnessing the internet to collect huge numbers of small donations, as well as larger sums from corporate donors.

He has also demonstrated the ability to gather crowds of 100,000 people or more to his rallies, and to generate a buzz seldom seen in US politics.

Shortly after his presidential victory was confirmed, he addressed a cheering mass in his home city of Chicago.

“It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America,” he said.

Media darling

Mr Obama, 47, electrified the 2004 Democratic National Convention in a speech about self reliance and high aspiration.

The son of a Kenyan man and a white woman from Kansas, he emphasised his personal history in a speech reflecting traditional American ideals of self-reliance and aspirations.

“Through hard work and perseverance my father got a scholarship to study in a magical place – America, which stood as a beacon of freedom and opportunity to so many who had come before,” he said.

After his landslide US Senate election victory in Illinois a few months later, he became a media darling and one of the most visible figures in Washington, with two best-selling books to his name.

He won the early backing of talk-show host Oprah Winfrey, who not only urged him to declare his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination on her programme but appeared on the campaign trail with him.

As a senator, Mr Obama established a firmly liberal voting record, but also worked with Republican colleagues on issues such as HIV/Aids-education and prevention.

An early critic of the Iraq war, he spoke out against the prospect of war several months before the March 2003 invasion.

His bid for the presidency was endorsed by such senior Republican figures as former Secretary of State Colin Powell and Scott McClellan, the former White House spokesman for President George W Bush.

Mrs Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, also rallied behind Mr Obama in the months after he won the nomination and campaigned on his behalf.

International upbringing

Mr Obama is named after his father, who grew up in Kenya herding goats but gained a scholarship to study in Hawaii.

There the Kenyan met and married Mr Obama’s mother, Ann, who was living in Honolulu with her parents.

When Mr Obama was a toddler, his father got a chance to study at Harvard but there was no money for the family to go with him. He later returned to Kenya alone, where he worked as a government economist, and the couple divorced.

When Mr Obama was six, his mother married an Indonesian man and the family moved to Jakarta.

Although his father and step-father were Muslim, Mr Obama is a Christian and attended secular and Catholic schools during the four years he lived in Indonesia, a largely Muslim country.

He then moved back to Hawaii to live with his grandparents and attend school.

Mr Obama went on to study political science at Columbia University in New York, and then moved to Chicago where he spent three years as a community organiser.

In 1988 he left to attend Harvard Law School, where he became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review.

After Harvard, Mr Obama returned to Chicago to practise civil rights law, representing victims of housing and employment discrimination. He served in the Illinois state senate from 1996 to 2004.

He is married to a lawyer, Michelle, and they have two young daughters, Malia and Sasha.

Race

The senator attended the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago for almost two decades but broke away from it in May 2008 after controversial sermons by Trinity preachers hit the headlines.

The Rev Jeremiah Wright was quoted as saying the 9/11 attacks were like “chickens coming home to roost” and that God should damn America for treating black people as “less than human”.

Seeking to defuse the uproar, Mr Obama tackled the issue of race directly, calling on the US to move beyond its long history of racial inequality.

“The anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races,” he said.

Mr Obama used to joke that people were always getting his name wrong, calling him “Alabama” or “Yo Mama”.

Now, as he waits to be sworn in as the 44th president of the United States, it seems unlikely that many will continue to make such a mistake.

.

.

.

Reference:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3936013.stm

.

.

.

Voters Flood Polls to Decide Epic Race

.

.

.

.

.

.

Americans went to the polls to choose the next president of the United States, deciding whether Senator Barack Obama or Senator John McCain was better suited to guide the nation through an economic crisis at home and two wars abroad.
In voting booths in every corner of the land, the people were collectively writing the ending to a political saga that has been unfolding for nearly two years, during a tumultuous, uncertain period of American history in which record numbers of people expressed concerns that the country was heading down the wrong track.

Larger than usual turnout was reported at polling stations in a number of key states, and lengthy lines, hour-long waits and overflowing parking lots were not unusual. Some voting experts and campaign advisers predicted that some 130 million voters would cast ballots, which would be the highest percentage turnout in a century, and would shatter the previous record of 123.5 million people who cast ballots four years ago.

By noon Eastern time on Tuesday, some precincts in Chester County, Pa., were reporting that up to half of their registered voters had already cast ballots, according to Agnes L. O’Toole, the county’s deputy director of voter services. She said that some voters waited in line for as long as two hours.

“This is above and beyond an anomaly,” Ms. O’Toole said. “Our phones are off the wall.”

By 1 p.m, some 3,000 people had cast votes in Purcellville, Va. — more than the 2,900 people who voted there in the entire 2004 election, said Robert Lazaro, the town’s mayor.

The candidates made the long election season one day longer. Mr. Obama made a last campaign stop Tuesday in Indiana, a traditionally Republican state that he hopes to win, to visit a phone bank staffed by union members.

“I’d like to get your vote,” he told one man on the phone, according to a pool report. “Don’t be discouraged if there are some long lines.”

For his part, Mr. McCain set off for campaign stops in Colorado and New Mexico, two western states that voted for President Bush in 2004 and that he hopes to keep in the Republican column. At a rally in Grand Junction, Colo., surrounded by friends and family, he sounded an urgent call for help.

“Get out there and vote!” Mr. McCain said. “I need your help. Volunteer, knock on doors, get your neighbors to the polls, drag ’em there if you need to. We’re going to bring real change to Washington and we have to fight for it!

But first, the candidates voted.

Mr. Obama cast his ballot at 7:36 a.m. Central time at the Beulah Shoesmith Elementary School in Chicago, accompanied by his wife, Michelle, who also voted, and by their daughters Sasha and Malia. “I noticed that Michelle took a long time though,” Mr. Obama said afterwards. “I had to check to see who she was voting for.”

Mr. McCain voted later in Phoenix, at 9:08 a.m. Mountain time, at the Albright United Methodist Church. He and his wife, Cindy, were greeted there by supporters with cheers of “Senator McCain!” and “Thank you, Senator! We love you!” Mr. McCain emerged with a sticker on his lapel that said, “I voted today.”

Mr. Obama’s running mate, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, voted in Wilmington with his wife, Jill, and his 91-year-old mother, Jean Finnegan Biden. Mr. McCain’s running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, voted in Wasilla with her husband, Todd. “Tomorrow I hope, I pray, I believe that I’ll be able to wake up as vice president-elect,” she told reporters there.

In tiny Dixville Notch, N.H., which casts its ballots just after midnight, Mr. Obama won 15 votes to Mr. McCain’s 6. The town usually votes Republican, and President Bush won the vote there in 2004.

There were some reports of voting problems. Virginia election officials said that three polling places opened late because of “human error.” At other polling places there, the paper ballots of voters who came in from the rain to vote with wet hands became soggy enough to foul the optical scanning machines that read the ballots. And at a polling place on the east side of Philadelphia, several voting machines were not working because they were too far from an available electrical outlet and no extension cord was available. But most areas reported things going smoothly.

Regardless of who wins on Tuesday, the election will make history. If Mr. Obama is elected, he will become the nation’s first African-American president. If Mr. McCain wins, his running mate will be the first woman elected vice president.
Presidential elections are really 51 separate contests waged in each state and the District of Columbia, and for Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain, the day was all about trying to win enough of those states to secure the 270 electoral-college votes needed to win the presidency.

Looming over the race was the unpopular Republican president, George W. Bush, whose approval ratings are hovering at record lows after he started a war in Iraq that many Americans concluded was a mistake and presided during an economic collapse this fall that left millions of people worrying about their mortgages and retirement savings.

Mr. Obama, 47, a first-term Democratic senator from Illinois, premised his candidacy on change, arguing that he would turn the page on President Bush’s policies and make the country respected again at home and abroad. Mr. McCain, 72, a son and grandson of admirals who was held as a prisoner of war in Vietnam for five and a half years, ran as the candidate with the most experience to be commander-in-chief, but he also argued that he had a track record of bucking his own party and would bring change to Washington as well.

The two men offered starkly different policy proposals. Mr. Obama called for ending American involvement in the war in Iraq over a period of about 16 months, while Mr. McCain called for continuing the fight until victory was achieved. Mr. Obama wanted to roll back President Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy while cutting taxes for the middle class; Mr. McCain wanted to extend the Bush tax cuts and add tax cuts for businesses. Mr. Obama wanted to use government money to expand health insurance for the uninsured, and to require coverage for all children, while Mr. McCain wanted to give individuals tax credits toward buying private insurance coverage.

In some areas, both men promised a break from the Bush administration, even if they differed on the details. Both agreed that global warming was real, and promised to take steps to reduce it; both pledged to close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and both were outspoken in condemning torture after reports of waterboarding and other abuse of prisoners at the hands of American captors surfaced in recent years.

During the long, grueling campaign, Mr. Obama repeatedly claimed that a McCain presidency would effectively represent a third term for Mr. Bush. And while Mr. McCain has at times been a thorn in Mr. Bush’s side, as a presidential candidate he was proposing to continue enough of Mr. Bush’s policies, from tax cuts to the Iraq war, that the charge seemed to stick.

Mr. McCain, for his part, painted Mr. Obama as unprepared, noting that only four years ago he was still a member of the Illinois State Senate, and tried to sow doubts about him as still largely an unknown quantity.

Beyond the big issues, there were plenty of fleeting, insubstantial controversies as well. Mr. McCain mocked Mr. Obama as a substance-free celebrity, and Mr. Obama mocked Mr. McCain for being unable to remember how many homes he owned. At times the contest grew ugly, with Mr. McCain all but suggesting that Mr. Obama was a socialist for his tax-cut proposal, and Ms. Palin accusing Mr. Obama of “palling around with terrorists” for working sporadically with a former 1960s radical.

It was a presidential campaign that shattered all kinds of records, from the number of votes cast during the long, bitterly contested primary and caucus season to the huge amounts of money raised and spent on the general election after Mr. Obama withdrew his pledge to accept public financing of his campaign.

Each candidate went through lean periods when he was considered a long shot for his party’s nomination, only to prevail in the end. Mr. McCain overcame the implosion of his campaign in the summer 2007, which left him out of money and all but written off, by persevering and winning the New Hampshire primary. Mr. Obama was put on his path to the nomination by winning the Iowa caucuses, but the Democratic primary season became a long, drawn-out battle for delegates with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

It was a year when the running mates took on great importance. Mr. Obama, who was new to national politics, tapped a more experienced hand, Mr. Biden, as his running mate, picking someone with extensive foreign policy experience but a propensity for the occasional gaffe. Mr. McCain chose Ms. Palin, a first-term governor not widely known outside Alaska, arguing that her willingness to buck her party elders there made her a perfect fit for him. The choice galvanized social conservatives who had long been wary of McCain, but turned off some independents who came to view her as unprepared.

If both Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain were chosen by the parties in large part because of their positions on the Iraq war — Mr. Obama for opposing it from the beginning, and Mr. McCain for supporting the “surge” strategy that was later credited with reducing violence there — the election quickly turned to pocketbook issues. Four-dollar-a-gallon gasoline prices over the summer provoked outrage, and the worsening economy reached a crisis this fall when the nation’s financial institutions teetered on the brink of collapse and required a huge government bailout.

The family lives of the candidates did not pause for the campaign. One of Mr. McCain’s sons, Jimmy, a Marine, served a tour of duty in Iraq, and Ms. Palin and Mr. Biden each bid farewell to their own Iraq-bound sons. Ms. Palin announced on the day the Republican National Convention began that her daughter Bristol, 17, was pregnant and engaged to be married. Mr. Biden’s mother-in-law died last month, and late on Sunday, just before the election, Mr. Obama’s grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, who helped raise him during his teenage years, died in Hawaii.

.

.

.

.

.

.