October 27 The first free parliamentary elections are held in Poland.

They will also be allowed to nominate themselves and vote in municipal council elections.

In Afghanistan, for example, we haven't just had one election or two elections. We've gone through three elections, presidential and parliamentary. And what do we find?

The Long Parliament dissolved itself and for the first time in almost 20 years, there was a general election.

Nelson Mandela wins the elections and is sworn in as the first democratic president.

In 2003, he became Minister for Health and Ageing, retaining this position until the defeat of the Howard Government at the 2007 election.

Egypt came under martial law as top generals led by Mohamed Hussein Tantawi began directing Egypt toward democratic elections.

But when it comes down to it, Ghana found itself in the same place in which the U.S. election stalled in the 2000 presidential elections Bush versus Gore.

In 1994, after three months of covering the South African election, I saw the inauguration of Nelson Mandela, and it was the most uplifting thing I've ever seen.

Whenever there is an election, it seems like something always goes wrong, someone tries to cheat, or something goes accidentally awry a ballot box goes missing here, chads are left hanging over here.

Several Iranian bloggers are discussing the victory of U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama in Iowa. It was the first nominating contest of the 2008 presidential election.

At TEDU 2009, Erik Hersman presents the remarkable story of Ushahidi, a GoogleMap mashup that allowed Kenyans to report and track violence via cell phone texts following the 2008 elections, and has evolved to continue saving lives in other countries.

In the 2002 elections, this cabinet lost its majority, because of an increased support for the CDA and the rise of the right LPF, a new political party, around Pim Fortuyn, who was assassinated a week before the elections.

You can see it in college graduation patterns, in job projections, in our marriage statistics, you can see it in the Icelandic elections, which you'll hear about later, and you can see it on South Korean surveys on son preference, that something amazing and unprecedented is happening with women.