100 Fun Facts About Presidential Inauguration

Since 1937, on what date are regular presidential inaugurations held?

January 20 has been the date since Franklin Roosevelt's second inauguration. When it falls on a Sunday, the president takes the oath privately that day and repeats it in public on Monday, as Ronald Reagan did in 1985.

Whose 1873 inaugural ball was held in an unheated hall so cold that guests danced in their overcoats?

Ulysses S. Grant's second inauguration fell on Washington's coldest March day on record, 16°F at noon. The ball in a temporary building broke up early as the food and drink froze.

The 20th Amendment moved Inauguration Day earlier to shorten which period?

The lame-duck period, when defeated officeholders stay on after an election, used to last four months. The change also trimmed 43 days from FDR's first term.

Where was the first presidential inauguration held in 1789?

Federal Hall stood on Wall Street in New York City, then the capital. The oath on its balcony came nearly two months late, because bad weather kept Congress from gathering the quorum it needed to count the electoral votes.

No chief justice had yet been appointed in April 1789, so who administered the first presidential oath?

Robert Livingston, the highest judge of the host state, stepped in five months before Congress created the national courts. The Bible, fetched in haste from a Masonic lodge, was opened at random.

Which singer performed "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" at the 2009 inauguration in a much-talked-about hat?

Aretha Franklin's grey felt hat, with its crystal-edged bow, set off a rush of its own: its Detroit maker was flooded with calls and orders from around the world.

Which president delivered the longest inaugural address, 8,445 words, in 1841?

He spoke without an overcoat or hat on a cold day and died 31 days later, though his pneumonia did not begin until three weeks after the speech.

Who gave the shortest inaugural address on record, just 135 words, at his second inauguration?

George Washington used most of those words to say that if he ever broke his oath he should suffer 'the upbraidings of all who are now witnesses of the present solemn ceremony'.

Which vice president gave a rambling speech at the 1865 inauguration after reportedly drinking three glasses of whiskey?

Andrew Johnson veered from one subject to another before the Senate, boasting of his humble roots. Lincoln shrugged it off: 'Andy ain't a drunkard.'

Since 1981, presidents have usually taken the oath on which side of the US Capitol, facing the National Mall?

The west front was first used for Ronald Reagan's 1981 inauguration: Congress moved the ceremony there to cut construction costs and let far more spectators watch. Until then the east front had been the custom since 1829.

What happened in Iran during Reagan's first inaugural address in 1981?

The 52 American hostages were freed after 444 days in captivity. Reagan broke the news himself that afternoon: their planes had left Iranian airspace and they were 'now free of Iran'.

Why was Reagan's 1985 public inauguration moved indoors?

Bitter cold made it the coldest Inauguration Day on record: 7°F at noon, with wind chills as low as −20°F. The parade was called off as well.

Whose 1909 inauguration was moved into the Senate Chamber because of a blizzard?

William H. Taft's storm dropped about ten inches of snow, toppling trees and stalling trains. It took 6,000 men and 500 wagons to clear 58,000 tons of snow and slush from the parade route.

Where was Donald Trump's 2025 inauguration held because of freezing temperatures and high winds?

The Capitol Rotunda holds only several hundred people, and the parade became an indoor event at Capital One Arena. It was just the second swearing-in that weather had driven into the room.

Where did Lyndon B. Johnson take the presidential oath of office in 1963?

Aboard Air Force One at Dallas Love Field, Johnson took the oath at 2:38 p.m. in a packed cabin, with Jacqueline Kennedy standing at his side. The plane left for Washington nine minutes later.

Which president was sworn in by his own father, a notary public, by kerosene lamp in 1923?

Calvin Coolidge was asleep at the family home in Vermont when his father woke him with news of Harding's death. The old house had no telephone, and once sworn in he went back to bed.

Gerald Ford's 1974 swearing-in was the first unscheduled inauguration caused by what?

A resignation: Richard Nixon quit over Watergate. Minutes after taking the oath in the White House East Room, Ford told the country that 'our long national nightmare is over'.

Who was the first vice president to become president on the death of his predecessor?

John Tyler hurried to Washington in 1841 and was sworn in at a hotel. Some saw him as only an acting president, but he claimed the full powers of the office and set the pattern for every successor.

Which poet read at the 1961 Kennedy inauguration, the first ever to do so?

Robert Frost had written a new poem for the day, but sunlight glaring off the fresh snow made his typescript unreadable. He gave up on it and recited 'The Gift Outright' from memory.

Who recited "On the Pulse of Morning" at Bill Clinton's first inauguration in 1993?

Maya Angelou wrote the poem for the occasion, and her recording of it went on to win the Grammy for best spoken word album the following year.

Who, at 22, became the youngest inaugural poet with "The Hill We Climb" in 2021?

Amanda Gorman, who overcame a childhood speech impediment, had the poem about half written when rioters stormed the Capitol on January 6. She finished it that night and worked the attack into her lines.

Whose 1817 inauguration became the first held outdoors in Washington?

James Monroe was due to be sworn in inside the House chamber. When the House and Senate could not agree on the arrangements, the ceremony moved to a platform in front of the building, on a sunny day.

What song does the Marine Band play immediately after the presidential oath?

'Hail to the Chief' began as a boat song in Sir Walter Scott's poem 'The Lady of the Lake', sung by Highland oarsmen to their clan leader. The vice president is greeted with 'Hail, Columbia' instead.

How many guns are fired in the salute after the presidential oath?

The 3rd Infantry Regiment, "The Old Guard", fires from Taft Park north of the Capitol and times the salute to outlast the music.

At his 2013 inauguration, Barack Obama took the oath on the Lincoln Bible and a Bible that had belonged to whom?

Martin Luther King Jr.'s Bible was stacked with Lincoln's because the public ceremony fell on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Obama had been sworn in privately the day before on a Bible from his wife's family.

Which president affirmed, rather than swore, the oath of office in 1853?

Franklin Pierce chose to affirm, as the Constitution allows, and then recited his whole inaugural address from memory, the first president to do so. Weeks earlier his only surviving son had been killed in a train accident.

On what book did Lyndon B. Johnson take the oath at his hurried 1963 swearing-in?

A Catholic missal lay on a side table in Kennedy's quarters, and in the rush it was taken for a Bible. Johnson, who was not Catholic, swore on it all the same.

Why did Chief Justice Roberts re-administer Barack Obama's oath the day after the 2009 ceremony?

The words had been jumbled: Roberts moved 'faithfully' out of place and Obama repeated the slip. The do-over came the next evening in the White House Map Room, where Obama said, 'We're going to do it very slowly.'

Which president started the tradition of reviewing the inaugural parade from a stand at the White House in 1881?

James Garfield watched from a stand built in front of the White House, a custom that long outlived him. He was shot that July and died in September.

Which president is said to have fled his own 1829 White House reception through a window to escape the crush?

Andrew Jackson had thrown the mansion open to the public, and the crowd packed in so tightly that china was smashed. Accounts differ on whether he left by a window or a side door, but he retreated to a hotel.

Who in 1977 became the first president to walk more than a mile of the parade route to the White House?

Jimmy Carter chose to walk from the Capitol with his family rather than ride, the first president to do so in the parade. Later presidents have copied the gesture, though rarely for as far.

Whose 1953 inaugural parade featured three elephants, an Alaskan dog team and an atomic cannon?

Dwight D. Eisenhower got a cowboy's welcome as well: at one point a rodeo trick rider, Montie Montana, lassoed the new president.

Why was there no inaugural parade for Franklin D. Roosevelt's fourth inauguration in 1945?

Gas rationing and a lumber shortage ruled out a parade and the stands it needs. With the war at its height, Roosevelt took the oath on a White House porch in a short, plain ceremony.

The first official inaugural ball was held in 1809 for which president?

James Madison's ball took place at Long's Hotel on the evening of his swearing-in, with tickets at $4. Washington had been honoured with a ball in 1789, but only a week after he took the oath.

Which was the first inauguration to be televised, in 1949?

Harry S. Truman's second inauguration went out live on every television network at once. He also revived the official inaugural ball, which had lapsed decades earlier.

Which new medium carried a presidential inauguration to the whole country for the first time in 1925?

Radio let the whole country listen in, and what it heard was one president being sworn in by another: the chief justice who gave the oath that day was a former president.

Which 1857 inauguration was the first known to have been photographed?

James Buchanan's ceremony was captured by John Wood, a government photographer hired the year before to record building work at the Capitol. He is now also credited with the famous picture of Lincoln's first inauguration.

Which outgoing president left Washington rather than attend Thomas Jefferson's 1801 inauguration?

John Adams left the capital before dawn on inauguration day, beaten by his own vice president. The two later made up by letter and died on the same day, July 4, 1826.

Which line comes from FDR's 1933 inaugural address?

'The only thing we have to fear is fear itself', Roosevelt said on a day when banks in most states had shut or limited withdrawals. Thirty-six hours later he ordered every bank in the country closed.

Which president had the 1913 inaugural ball cancelled, judging it inappropriate for so solemn an occasion?

Woodrow Wilson thought a ball out of keeping with the day, the first time one had been called off in 60 years. Washington then went without an official inaugural ball for the next 36 years.

What unusual equipment did the Army use to clear snow from Pennsylvania Avenue before the 1961 inauguration?

Flamethrowers were turned on Pennsylvania Avenue after eight inches of snow fell the night before. The ceremony and parade then went ahead in bright sun, at 22°F.

Before Trump in 2025, who was the only former president re-inaugurated after leaving office?

Grover Cleveland won the popular vote in 1888 but lost the Electoral College to Benjamin Harrison. He beat Harrison in a rematch four years later and was sworn in again in a snowstorm.

Inaugurations in 1793 and 1797 were held in which city, then the nation's capital?

Philadelphia was only a stopgap capital while a permanent one was being built on the Potomac. Both ceremonies took place in Congress Hall, next door to Independence Hall.

Which president, winner of the disputed 1876 election, was sworn in secretly a day early in March 1877?

Rutherford B. Hayes took the oath privately in the White House Red Room on a Saturday, because the official day fell on a Sunday and feelings over the contested result ran high. He repeated it in public on the Monday.

Since 1953, what event has followed the swearing-in ceremony inside the Capitol?

A congressional luncheon in its present form dates from 1953, when the guests dined on creamed chicken, baked ham and potato puffs. Before that, new presidents usually lunched at the White House as guests of their predecessors.

Which president hired sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens to design an artistic inaugural medal in 1905?

Theodore Roosevelt was displeased with the committee's official medal, little more than a copy of an old Mint design, so he asked Saint-Gaudens for a second one. Tiffany cast just 125 of them.

Where is the interfaith prayer service on the morning after the inauguration usually held?

Washington National Cathedral is an Episcopal church built on an old idea: the first plan for the capital called for a 'great church for national purposes', and Congress chartered this one in 1893.

What was the inaugural theme of Barack Obama's 2009 ceremony, a phrase from the Gettysburg Address?

A New Birth of Freedom was chosen because 2009 was the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth. Obama took the oath looking down the Mall toward the Lincoln Memorial.

Which vice president was sworn in by Speaker Tip O'Neill rather than a justice in 1977?

Walter Mondale could choose who swore him in, because the Constitution does not say who must give a vice president the oath. Since the Second World War, vice presidents have usually picked friends and associates.

Joe Biden's 2021 inauguration made him the first president from which state?

Delaware was the first state to ratify the Constitution, in 1787, yet it waited more than two centuries for a president. Biden was born in Pennsylvania and moved to Delaware at the age of ten.

What was Abraham Lincoln newly sporting at his 1861 inauguration, after an 11-year-old girl wrote suggesting it?

A beard made Abraham Lincoln the first president with facial hair beyond sideburns; Grace Bedell wrote to him weeks before the 1860 election, and he met her on the train journey to Washington.

Hours after his private 1985 swearing-in, Ronald Reagan performed which televised sporting duty by satellite link?

The Super Bowl coin toss had never been performed by a president before; Reagan flipped the coin by satellite for a game played in California, his adopted home state.

Which senator's fluffy mittens turned a photo from the 2021 presidential inauguration into a worldwide internet meme?

Bernie Sanders was wearing mittens made by a Vermont schoolteacher, and he later sold merchandise of the photo to raise money for charity.

Which US president's inaugural address urged Americans to ask what they could do for their country?

John F. Kennedy drafted the 1961 speech with his aide Ted Sorensen, and it went out on the first inauguration to be televised in color.

Which stage actor is widely thought to appear in photographs of the crowd at Abraham Lincoln's second inauguration?

John Wilkes Booth was among those listening to the speech that day, and he assassinated the president just over a month later.

Which pop star recited part of the Pledge of Allegiance in Spanish during her 2021 inauguration medley?

Jennifer Lopez slipped the Spanish line into the bridge of a medley of 'This Land Is Your Land' and 'America the Beautiful'.

Public inauguration ceremonies are pushed back a day whenever the scheduled date falls on which day of the week?

Sunday inaugurations have been avoided since 1821; in 1957, 1985 and 2013 the president took the oath privately on the day and again in public the next.

Since 1977, how has the outgoing president traditionally left the Capitol grounds after a successor's swearing-in?

Leaving by helicopter has been the custom since Gerald Ford's departure; earlier ex-presidents drove away by car or caught a train home from Union Station.

Which singer serenaded Barack and Michelle Obama with 'At Last' for their first dance at a 2009 inaugural ball?

Beyoncé sang at the Neighborhood Inaugural Ball, the couple's first stop of the night, which organizers billed as the first with free or affordable tickets.

Which caged creatures, brought in to entertain the guests, died at the unheated inaugural ball of 1873?

Canaries died in their cages in a temporary building on Judiciary Square, where desserts congealed, drinks froze and the musicians struggled to play.

At what time of day on Inauguration Day does one presidential term end and the next begin?

Noon is fixed by the 20th Amendment, oath or no oath: in 2009 the ceremony ran late, and the term changed hands about five minutes before the oath was finished.

Which date, the day the federal government began operating in 1789, was Inauguration Day until the 1930s?

March 4 was Inauguration Day from 1793 to 1933, although the very first president had to wait until April 30 to be sworn in.

Who in 1921 became the first US president to ride to his own inauguration in an automobile?

Warren G. Harding was also the first president to take the oath and deliver his address through loudspeakers.

Which pop star sang the national anthem at the 2021 presidential inauguration in a custom Schiaparelli gown and brooch?

Lady Gaga was followed by a Georgia firefighter who led the Pledge of Allegiance in both speech and American Sign Language.

Which film composer wrote 'Air and Simple Gifts' for the quartet that performed at the 2009 presidential inauguration?

John Williams's piece was played by Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman and two others, in sync with a recording they had made in advance.

Franklin D. Roosevelt's pared-back wartime inauguration of 1945 took place on which part of the White House?

The South Portico stood in for the Capitol at a simple, low-key ceremony, and the 559-word address that followed is the second-shortest ever given.

Which cause brought thousands of marchers to Pennsylvania Avenue the day before the 1913 presidential inauguration?

Votes for women was the demand of a suffrage procession timed to put pressure on the incoming president, who resisted the idea for years afterward.

Two of the five flags hung above the inaugural platform are a 13-star design popularly named after whom?

Betsy Ross flags share the display with a 50-star flag in the center and two flags dating from the admission of the new president's home state.

Which crooner organized and hosted a star-studded gala at the D.C. Armory on the eve of the 1961 inauguration?

Frank Sinatra recruited Hollywood stars for the night and even persuaded Broadway theatres to suspend their shows so that actors could attend.

Which band re-formed specially to play its hit 'Don't Stop' at a 1993 presidential inaugural gala?

Fleetwood Mac got back together for the night because the song had been the incoming president's campaign anthem.

The carriage that took Martin Van Buren to his 1837 inauguration was built from the timbers of which warship?

USS Constitution wood made the small phaeton he shared with the outgoing president, the first time an outgoing and incoming president had ridden to the Capitol together.

Which president, the first inaugurated in Washington, D.C., simply walked to the Capitol from his boarding house?

Thomas Jefferson was the first president to walk to the ceremony rather than ride in a carriage, and he ended the day at dinner with his fellow boarders.

Which president broke with tradition in 1825 by wearing long trousers, not knee breeches, to his inauguration?

John Quincy Adams also wore his hair short rather than tied back in a queue, dropping the fashions of the 18th century on the day he took office.

The 1845 presidential inauguration of James K. Polk was the first to be reported using which technology?

The telegraph carried the news out of Washington, and the same ceremony was the first to appear in a newspaper illustration, in the Illustrated London News.

Whose 1897 inauguration was the first to be recorded by a motion picture camera?

William McKinley also watched his parade from the first glass-enclosed reviewing stand, built to shield him from bad weather.

Whose 1929 inauguration was the first to be captured by a talking newsreel, with sound as well as pictures?

Herbert Hoover's newsreels also caught the chief justice garbling a phrase of the oath, a slip that a 13-year-old schoolgirl wrote in to point out.

Which federal judge became the first woman to swear in a US president, in Dallas in 1963?

Sarah T. Hughes had been a federal district judge for only two years when she was called on for a task normally performed by the chief justice.

Which president's wife began the tradition of holding the Bible as he took the oath of office in 1965?

Lady Bird Johnson's gesture stuck, and the same inauguration was the first at which a president rode in a bulletproof limousine.

Which Supreme Court justice swore in Kamala Harris as vice president at the 2021 inauguration?

Sonia Sotomayor had already sworn in a vice president in 2013, which made her the first woman to administer an inaugural oath twice.

Too ill to travel, Vice President William R. King took his 1853 oath of office on which Caribbean island?

Cuba was where he had gone to recover from tuberculosis; Congress let him take the oath there, and he died just 45 days into his term without carrying out any duties of the office.

Which tune, once the president's own anthem, does the Marine Band play for a newly sworn-in vice president?

Hail, Columbia was treated as an unofficial national anthem throughout the 19th century, until 'The Star-Spangled Banner' was officially adopted in 1931.

The Bible for the first presidential oath in 1789 was fetched at the last minute from what kind of institution?

A Masonic lodge nearby supplied its Bible when the organizers found that none had been provided, and in the haste it was opened at random to Genesis 49.

Franklin D. Roosevelt took all four of his oaths on a 1686 family Bible printed in which language?

Dutch makes it the only inaugural Bible in a modern foreign language, and it is also the oldest ever used; he had it opened to 1 Corinthians 13 each time.

Where did Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt begin the custom of morning worship on Inauguration Day in 1933?

St. John's Church stands on Lafayette Square, a block from the White House, and is often called the Church of the Presidents.

Which chief justice presided at a record nine presidential inaugurations between 1801 and 1833?

John Marshall gave the oath for the last time at an 1833 ceremony that was moved indoors because of bad weather and the president's poor health.

Which chief justice, author of the Dred Scott decision, swore in Abraham Lincoln at the 1861 inauguration?

Roger B. Taney administered the oath to seven incoming presidents in all, and this was the last of them.

After a president died of an assassin's bullet in 1901, his successor took the oath at a private home in which city?

Buffalo's Ansley Wilcox House, where the oath was administered, is preserved as a National Historic Site.

Which vice president took the presidential oath at his own Manhattan home at about 2 a.m. in 1881?

Chester A. Arthur repeated the oath two days later in the Vice President's Room at the Capitol, with two former presidents looking on.

Which agency leads security at presidential inaugurations, which are classed as National Special Security Events?

The Secret Service plans and runs the operation, while the FBI handles intelligence and counterterrorism and FEMA prepares for recovery if anything goes wrong.

Which Pennsylvania Avenue residence is traditionally offered to the president-elect before the inauguration?

Blair House is lent by the outgoing president for the five days before the ceremony; Harry Truman lived there for over three years while the White House was rebuilt.

The word 'inauguration' goes back to Rome's augurs, priests who read omens in the flight of which creatures?

Birds gave Latin the verb inaugurare, meaning to take omens from their flight and to install someone in office only when the signs were favorable.

Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural ball in 1865 was held in which building, later home to two art museums?

The Patent Office had served as a barracks, hospital and morgue earlier in the Civil War, with wounded soldiers lying among cases of invention models.

Which poet, also a civil engineer, read 'One Today' at Barack Obama's second inauguration in 2013?

Richard Blanco was the first immigrant, the first Latino and the first openly gay poet to read at a presidential inauguration.

Which contralto, the first Black singer at the Metropolitan Opera, sang at the 1957 and 1961 inaugurations?

Marian Anderson was already famous for a 1939 open-air concert in the capital that drew an integrated crowd of more than 75,000 people.

Which Missouri senator's friends claimed he was acting president for a single day in 1849, between two terms?

David Rice Atchison was the Senate's president pro tempore when the incoming president put off his oath for a day, but scholars dismiss the claim.

Which 26-year-old designer made the white one-shouldered gown Michelle Obama wore to the 2009 inaugural balls?

Jason Wu's commission broke with recent first ladies, who had used the night to showcase designers from their own hometowns.

Which senator became the first woman to preside over a presidential inauguration, as committee chair in 2009?

Dianne Feinstein acted as master of ceremonies at an event that drew the largest crowd Washington, D.C., had ever seen.

The official live stream of Donald Trump's 2017 inauguration reached 6.8 million viewers on which social network?

Twitter, since renamed X, had never carried a bigger live stream, and the ceremony was also the first inauguration to be live-tweeted.

The first presidential inauguration in 1789 was held up for weeks because Congress was slow to assemble what?

A quorum was needed before the electoral ballots could be counted, and the Senate did not manage one until April 6.

Who in 1989 became the first sitting vice president since 1837 to be inaugurated after winning the presidency?

George H. W. Bush was the first to manage it since Martin Van Buren, 152 years earlier.