DENVER -- Sen. Barack Obama, culminating a historic run through a long winter and spring of primary elections, won the Democratic Party's nomination for the presidency Wednesday, a first for a black man in either major U.S. political party.

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He offered an exclamation mark to the evening by making a surprise visit to the Democratic National Convention podium in Denver after his chosen running mate, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, delivered his own acceptance speech. Watch video of Obama's appearance here.

Obama told roaring delegates that he wants people to understand why he is proud to have "the whole Biden family on this journey with me to take America back."

He deadpanned at one point that he thought the convention had "gone pretty well so far."

In a moment of high political drama, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama's former rival, spoke for her New York delegation, and cast all their 282 votes for Obama, giving him enough delegates to win the nomination and end their long battle for their party's nod to face presumed Republican nominee Sen. John McCain. Watch video of Obama's nomination here.

Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, later offered Obama a ringing endorsement from the convention podium.

"Everything I learned in my eight years as president and in the work I've done since, in America and across the globe, has convinced me that Barack Obama is the man for this job," Clinton said to cheers.

"Barack Obama is ready to lead America and restore American leadership in the world," Clinton said. Obama is "ready to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Barack Obama is ready to be president of the United States." Watch video of Bill Clinton endorsing Obama here. Read a transcript of Bill Clinton's speech here.

Biden told the convention he'd learned a lot about Obama by campaigning against him for the party's presidential nomination. He was an early dropout in that campaign, quitting after he managed only 1 percent of the vote in Iowa's opening caucuses.

Biden said that in debating Obama, watching him react under pressure, he learned about the strength of the Democratic presidential candidate's mind and his ability to touch and inspire people.

"And I realized he has tapped into the oldest American belief of all: We don't have to accept a situation we cannot bear. We have the power to change it," Biden said. Watch video of Biden's speech here. Read a transcript of Biden's speech here.

As with previous nights, a long line of Democratic Party leaders took to the stage at the Pepsi Center to deride McCain and promote Obama.

• Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: "For the past eight years, the man in the Oval Office has tipped his hat over his eyes, kicked back his chair, and snoozed at his desk. Charged with protecting our national interests, he slept on duty while his vice president conspired with oil industry cronies. Tasked with cutting off funding to terrorists, he slept on duty while oil shortages worsened, oil prices soared, and dollars by the ton were delivered to terrorists' banks in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela. Faced with a new kind of war, this president and his vice president helped their friends the old-fashioned way: through war profiteering, tax cuts for billionaires, and in many cases out-and-out corruption." Watch uncut video of Reid's speech here. Read the full transcript of Reid's remarks here.
• Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass: "No one can question Barack Obama's patriotism. Like all of us, he was taught what it means to be an American by his family: his grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line in World War II, his grandfather who marched in Patton's army, and his great uncle who enlisted in the army right out of high school at the height of the war. And on a spring day in 1945, he helped liberate one of the concentration camps at Buchenwald." Watch uncut video of Kerry's remarks. Read a transcript of Kerry's remarks here.
• Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: "Senator McCain claims to already know everything a president needs to know, but the first qualification any leader needs to have is the ability to learn. We need a president who is not wedded to 20th century thinking, who can forge a network of power and principle that will keep America strong and safe in the 21st century." Watch uncut video of Albright's speech here.
• Iraq war veteran and Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Penn.: "When I returned from Iraq, I realized we didn't just need change over there, we also needed to change how we treat our veterans here at home. For eight long years, we've had a president who rushed to stand with soldiers at political rallies but abandoned them at Walter Reed. We've had a president who spent billions on private contractors but not on body armor for our troops. We've had a president who was there for the photo ops, but AWOL when it came to doing right by our veterans. It is time for a change." Watch uncut video of Murphy's speech here.

Obama's nomination sealed a political ascent as astonishing as any other in recent memory - made all the more so by his race, in a nation founded by slave owners.

The son of a white mother from Kansas and a black father from Kenya whom he barely knew, he attended college and Harvard Law School. In between was a turn as a $12,000-a-year community worker on the streets of Chicago.

He won his seat in the Illinois Legislature in 1996. But his first bid for higher office, a brash challenge to Rep. Bobby Rush in an inner-city Chicago congressional district, ended in failure in 2000.

Four years later, as a candidate for the Senate, he dazzled with a keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, then won his election. He announced his presidential candidacy a scant two years after arriving in Washington.

With his gifts as a speaker, his astounding ability to raise funds on the Internet and an unmatched ground operation pieced together by political veterans, he won the first test, the Iowa caucuses, on Jan. 3

Clinton rebounded to win the New Hampshire primary five days later, and the two were soon matched in a grueling battle for the nomination that was not settled until the primaries ended in June.

"The journey will be difficult. The road will be long," he said then as he pivoted to confront McCain.

More Convention Coverage:

• August 27, 2008: Craigslist Gives Peek Into Odd DNC Items
• August 27, 2008: Volunteers Help Meet DNC Recycling Goals
• August 27, 2008: Anticipated DNC Protests Underwhelming
• August 27, 2008: Feds: Threat On Barack Obama Not Serious
• August 26, 2008: Clinton: 'No Way. No How. No McCain'
• August 26, 2008: Quoted: DNC Tuesday Speaker Highlights
• August 26, 2008: Keynote: McCain 'Stuck In The Past'
• August 26, 2008: Kennedy Electrifies DNC
• August 25, 2008: Michelle Obama Stresses Common Values