In any newsroom, there are stories we feel like we cover in some form every day — a shooting, a debate about education funding, the latest bomb blast in the usual place. Those stories are important and we do our best to tell them.

But then there are the ones that really make our hearts beat a little faster, the ones that make the cliche of “writing the first draft of history” not seem like such a bloated claim.

Last night was we had one of those stories.

I was working the national desk, and not long after I got in we received word that President Obama was going to address the nation at 10:30 p.m. Given that it was a Sunday and an especially late hour, it was clear this going to be something important.

As we waited for the address — which ended up being delayed until more like 11:30 — word started to leak out that Mr. Obama was going to announce the U.S. had killed Osama bin Laden. It’s always fascinating to see how different news organizations treat that kind of information, and who is willing to risk being wrong for the sake of being first.

My newsroom is very much on the conservative side, so a senior editor prepared a quick story based on what Mr. Obama was likely to say with the idea of tweaking it once the address began.

As the president spoke, we quickly confirmed the major details and released the brief story as I took notes that would be used in the subsequent versions. As the following frantic hours went by, I added more and more details from Mr. Obama’s speech as well as new information about the operation we were getting from senior White House officials.

My last version looked like this.

As I was writing, I was glancing at the television on my desk seeing the scenes outside the White House and in New York as crowds of people gathered in the early morning hours to celebrate the news. I also thought at one point Twitter was going to crumble under the pressure of the massive number of messages that were being sent.

But more than anything, I was proud to be a part of a team that calmly and efficiently covered the heck out of this story, and included multiple people rushing to come into work on a day off or going right back to work even though they just left. There’s a reason we do what we do.

And now it’s time to rest. Goodnight.

(Bonus: interesting links with some insider info, including how White House officials convince you that you REALLY need to come into work on a Sunday night even if they can’t tell you why.)