The 2008 race sees freshman Senator Barack Obama go up against “maverick” Republican Senator John McCain.

The 1980 race sees President Jimmy Carter and Republican Ronald Reagan having to fight off fierce challenges from within, as both parties struggle to re-invent themselves and use the global media spotlight to their advantage.

The 1964 race was held in a country still reeling from the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and pits incumbent Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson against conservative Republican Barry Goldwater.

The 1912 race is an election between four remarkable candidates - former Republican President Theodore Roosevelt, his anointed heir President William Howard Taft, scholarly and religious Democrat Woodrow Wilson, and Socialist Eugene Debs.

The presidential election of 1976 pits the political establishment, personified by Republican President Gerald Ford, against the untainted idealism of Democrat Jimmy Carter, the relatively unknown governor of Georgia.

Republican General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Democrat Adlai Stevenson both were persuaded to run for the White House, but as the gloves come off this becomes a fierce battle for hearts and minds.