United States: Country Profile

Back in 2004 a largely unknown Illinois state senator running for the U.S. Senate delivered the keynote speech at the Democratic Party’s national convention. Convention keynote speeches are rarely remembered much after the next day’s news cycle. Not so this one. The speech electrified the convention hall. It energized the millions of television viewers. The speech-maker went on to win the Senate seat. Much more than that, he catapulted to national stature. His name was Barack Obama. Four years later he was President Barack Obama. One of the most meteoric rises in American history--- and, as the first African-American President, among the most momentous. 2008 was a momentous year in another respect, and this one much less positive. The American economy crashed like it had not done since the Great Depression of the 1930s. While other countries did have economic problems of their own making (Spain, being one example), it was the American crash that was widely seen as the principal source of the global economic crisis