Obama to become 44th U.S. president.

Barack Obama was poised to make history on Tuesday as America's first black president, riding the optimism of millions of people into power and inheriting a recession and two wars that will test his skills. Obama, 47, the son of a Kenyan father and a white mother from Kansas, was set to take the oath of office at midday (12 p.m. EST) on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, his hand placed on a Bible used by Abraham Lincoln at his first inauguration in 1861.