Specialist Washington Santos, of Brazil, holds his 2-year-old son during a naturalization ceremony on July 4, 2006, in Seattle. Santos, a soldier stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington, was among more than 500 Seattle-area residents who took the Oath of Allegiance that day and became U.S. citizens.

Overall, about 700,000 people each year take the Oath of Allegiance to become U.S. citizens. At that time, they receive copies of The Citizen’s Almanac, which includes the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which abolished slavery in 1863, and other fundamental documents of American democracy. (© AP Images)