The morning began as 225 petitioners for U.S. citizenship filed into the Rotunda for the annual naturalization ceremony. They came from 69 countries. This year’s ceremony featured remarks from Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero and a keynote address by United States Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano. The Honorable Royce Lamberth, United States District Court for the District of Columbia, presided over the ceremony. After the oath-taking, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the speeches, everyone squeezed together for a group photograph.

Visitors to the National Archives were treated to a special presentation about the Constitutional Convention. Then the Founding Fathers (And the Director of the Foundation for the National Archives, Thora Colot) served cake decorated with an edible image of the Constitution.

Many of our guests took pictures of the cakes--before they took a slice.

The Constitution has been on display at the National Archives for over 60 years. Now it's on Facebook...

For the first time, the "fifth" page of the Constitution was put on public display from September 14 to 19.  In the words of James Madison, without the resolution the Constitution, “was nothing more than the draft of a plan, nothing but a dead letter, until life and validity were breathed into it by the voice of the people.”

In honor of the 225th anniversary, the National Archives created a new, free online book about the Constitution:

There are many resources for teachers who are interested in Constitution Day, including our web site DocsTeach.org and our new iTunes course.

And finally, we challenged our followers on Twitter to condense the meaning of the Preamble in a bite-sized tweet. We had many great entries #Preamble but there could only be one winner. Congratulations to Jean Huets! The Archivist of the United States chose her tweet as the winner. Her prize is a pocket-size Constitution from the Foundation for the National Archives.