Inauguration Day is the new president’s day to celebrate winning the White House.

It also is the nation’s day to celebrate.

But it could be a good thing in the future.

As President Ronald Reagan observed at his first inauguration in 1981, “This orderly transfer of authority” is a “commonplace occurrence” in the history of the United States. Yet “in the eyes of many in the world, this every-four-year ceremony we accept as normal is nothing less than a miracle.”

What Reagan meant was that in good times and in bad times, in routine years and history-making years, changes in American leadership have come peacefully and without crisis.

This year’s inauguration, of course, is making history, with the swearing in next Tuesday of Barack Obama as the nation’s first African American president.

And since the election November 4, every state has wanted to get involved — either in the inaugural parade honoring the president, in the balls and parties on inauguration night or in the record-setting crowd attending the inauguration ceremony itself.

For months, guest invitations to this year’s inauguration were among the hardest to get ever.

“We have gotten more than 100,000 requests for tickets,” U.S. Senator Charles Schumer of New York told The New York Times — just two weeks after Election Day. “People know they are witnessing history and they want to go.”

Celebrities and leaders in careers ranging from sports to business all want to be part of the celebration.

African American stars Oprah Winfrey, Sean Combs, Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Samuel L. Jackson, Sidney Poitier and Forest Whitaker all are included on “A-Lists” for invitations, as are Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Matthew Broderick and Bruce Springsteen.

Special invitations went out to surviving members of the Tuskegee Airmen, the history-making black pilots who performed courageously in World War II, and to the Little Rock 9, a group of black students who braved threats to integrate an all-white high school in Arkansas.

An invitation also went out to a modern National Guard Unit that recently re-formed to honor the 54th Massachusetts Volunteers, the first commissioned unit of black soldiers in the Civil War.

The modern Guard soldiers were invited along with Civil War re-enactors portraying the original soldiers of the 54th Volunteers, whose service was recounted in the movie “Glory.”

As with all inaugurations, the presidential parade was drawn up to include marchers and units from all over the nation.

Seven units were picked from Obama’s home state of Illinois, including three high school bands and a group called the Lawn Rangers from Amazing Arcola, a lawn-mower-pushing drill team. Two high school bands from Hawaii, where Obama was born, also were given invitations.

At least four units were invited from Delaware, the home state of Vice President-Elect Joe Biden, including two college bands, a high school band, and the Delaware Volunteer Firemen’s Association. The association contingent will include firefighters from every fire company in Delaware and the Citizens Hose Company of Smyrna, one of the few fire department marching bands in the country.