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Barack Obama today called on Americans to embrace a "new era of responsibility" and work with courage and selflessness to guide the United States through the economic crisis and back to a position of global leadership.

In an inspirational inaugural address after being sworn in as the 44th President of the United States, Mr Obama told the nation: "Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and begin again the work of remaking America."

He portrayed the United States as a country built on the sacrifice and hard work of immigrants, pioneers and slaves and said that a similar sense of sacrifice was called for now.

"For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies," Mr Obama said from the steps of the Capitol as an estimated two million watched in sub-zero temperatures.

"It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours," Mr Obama added. "It is the fire-fighter’s courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent’s willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

"Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history.

"What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

"This is the price and the promise of citizenship. This is the source of our confidence - the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny. This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed - why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath."

Before his speech, as he took the 35-word oath of office, Mr Obama stumbled, mixing up the words as his wife watched on, smiling broadly.

But he was soon back to his oratorical best as he delivered an inaugural speech likely to go down in history not just for the fact that it was delivered by a black man, but for its stirring call to arms in the face of economic and geopolitical crises.

Mr Obama began by saying that his 43 predecessors as president had delivered their inaugural speeches "during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace" but also, occasionally, "amidst gathering clouds and raging storms".

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