From Nadia El-Awady’s twit­ter feed on this first full day of free­dom in Egypt:

An amaz­ing thing hap­pened yes­ter­day. My coun­try is free. For the first time in its his­to­ry it is free. (cont)

This came about in the most won­der­ful way. We did not have a mil­i­tary coup. A for­eign coun­try did not invade us to bring us democ­ra­cy (cont)

Nor­mal peo­ple like you and me went out to the streets peace­ful­ly and demand­ed their free­dom. An amaz­ing thing hap­pened yesterday.

Those nor­mal peo­ple were faced with tremen­dous hard­ship in the process. At times they were attacked with brute police force and some died…

Some were faced with sleep­ing in the cold on the ground and in the rain

And so many oth­ers left their work and their fam­i­lies and walked on foot every day for 18 days to demand their freedom

It worked! We are FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Today our coun­try starts with a total­ly clean slate! Isn’t that the coolest thing? #jan25

I’m an Egypt­ian rev­o­lu­tion­ary! I helped top­ple a dic­ta­tor! #jan25 #egypt

A huge thank you to sci­ence writer Nadia El-Awady for giv­ing us a win­dow into these amaz­ing events. I’ve had tears in my eyes all day, watch­ing this unfold. It’s tru­ly remark­able how the peo­ple of Egypt seized free­dom with such force and with so lit­tle violence.

I don’t doubt that when Egyp­t’s democ­ra­cy is as old as the US’s, the 300+ cit­i­zens who died in street bat­tles ear­ly on will be hon­ored as mar­tyrs, as well they should be. But I also hope that the mil­lions of Egyp­tians who stood up for democ­ra­cy and lived to tell the tale are hon­ored at least as much. Tahrir Square is not a place of mar­tyrs, because mar­tyrs are the ones who did­n’t get to see the promised land. Nadia and every oth­er Egypt­ian gets to live in a nation that is free. They’ll vote in free elec­tions soon, and choose their own gov­ern­ment, and set their own direc­tion in the world. That is far more worth cel­e­brat­ing than the deaths.

In the US, we had to buy our free­dom with blood, with a rev­o­lu­tion­ary war that cost many lives, and it was bru­tal and hor­rif­ic. How won­der­ful to see that the moral force of mil­lions of Egyp­tians stand­ing against tyran­ny is enough to crum­ble the walls of the most entrenched dic­ta­tor­ship. This is a rev­o­lu­tion that could have hap­pened with­out a sin­gle lost life. This does­n’t mean we should for­get those who died defend­ing their right to protest, nor that we should­n’t hon­or their sac­ri­fice. But I’d rather hon­or the sac­ri­fices of so many Egyp­tians who risked their safe­ty, but who over­came the vio­lence and repres­sion through sheer num­bers and the pro­tec­tive halo cast by their just cause.

Thank you Nadia, and thank you to all the peo­ple of Egypt for let­ting us all wit­ness this his­toric moment. Through Twit­ter, Al Jazeera, live­blogs at the Guardian and the New York Times, and oth­er media, those of us who could not stand with you in per­son could feel the flow of events, and urge things towards their just and nec­es­sary conclusion.

Ear­li­er today, Phil Plait tweet­ed: “Seri­ous note: will the Egyp­tians now build a democ­ra­cy or a theoc­ra­cy? Or will it be more of the same?” I replied, man­gling the orig­i­nal: “As the say­ing goes, @BadAstronomer, ‘A democ­ra­cy, if they can keep it’.” I have no doubt that they can and will.