Presidential Inauguration Trivia
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100 free Presidential Inauguration trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Every four years, at noon on January 20, the president of the United States takes a 35-word oath. Around that single constitutional requirement has grown a day of parades, poems, prayer services, balls and the occasional flubbed line. This inauguration trivia quiz covers the firsts and the records: the first ceremony on Federal Hall's balcony in 1789, the longest and shortest addresses, the swearing-in by kerosene lamp, the oath aboard Air Force One, the move to the Capitol's west front and the ceremonies driven indoors by the cold. Every answer is sourced and explained, so you can play it for Presidents' Day, a civics class or the next Inauguration Day.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Since 1937, on what date are regular presidential inaugurations held?
January 20
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.
Q 02Whose 1873 inaugural ball was held in an unheated hall so cold that guests danced in their overcoats?
Ulysses S. Grant
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.
Q 03The 20th Amendment moved Inauguration Day earlier to shorten which period?
Lame-duck 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.
Q 04Where was the first presidential inauguration held in 1789?
Federal Hall, New York City
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.
Q 05No chief justice had yet been appointed in April 1789, so who administered the first presidential oath?
Robert Livingston
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.
Q 06Which singer performed "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" at the 2009 inauguration in a much-talked-about hat?
Aretha Franklin
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.
Q 07Which president delivered the longest inaugural address, 8,445 words, in 1841?
William Henry Harrison
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.
Q 08Who gave the shortest inaugural address on record, just 135 words, at his second inauguration?
George Washington
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'.
Q 09Which vice president gave a rambling speech at the 1865 inauguration after reportedly drinking three glasses of whiskey?
Andrew Johnson
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.'
Q 10Since 1981, presidents have usually taken the oath on which side of the US Capitol, facing the National Mall?
West front
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.
Q 11What happened in Iran during Reagan's first inaugural address in 1981?
The 52 American hostages were freed
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'.
Q 12Why was Reagan's 1985 public inauguration moved indoors?
Bitter cold
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.
Q 13Whose 1909 inauguration was moved into the Senate Chamber because of a blizzard?
William H. Taft
Q 21Who, at 22, became the youngest inaugural poet with "The Hill We Climb" in 2021?
Amanda Gorman
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.
Q 22Whose 1817 inauguration became the first held outdoors in Washington?
James Monroe
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.
Q 23What song does the Marine Band play immediately after the presidential oath?
Hail to the Chief
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.
Q 14Where was Donald Trump's 2025 inauguration held because of freezing temperatures and high winds?
The Capitol Rotunda
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.
Q 15Where did Lyndon B. Johnson take the presidential oath of office in 1963?
Aboard Air Force One
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.
Q 16Which president was sworn in by his own father, a notary public, by kerosene lamp in 1923?
Calvin Coolidge
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.
Q 17Gerald Ford's 1974 swearing-in was the first unscheduled inauguration caused by what?
A resignation
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'.
Q 18Who was the first vice president to become president on the death of his predecessor?
John Tyler
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.
Q 19Which poet read at the 1961 Kennedy inauguration, the first ever to do so?
Robert Frost
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.
Q 20Who recited "On the Pulse of Morning" at Bill Clinton's first inauguration in 1993?
Maya Angelou
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.
'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.
Q 24How many guns are fired in the salute after the presidential oath?
21
The 3rd Infantry Regiment, "The Old Guard", fires from Taft Park north of the Capitol and times the salute to outlast the music.
Q 25At his 2013 inauguration, Barack Obama took the oath on the Lincoln Bible and a Bible that had belonged to whom?
Martin Luther King Jr.
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.
Q 26Which president affirmed, rather than swore, the oath of office in 1853?
Franklin Pierce
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.
Q 27On what book did Lyndon B. Johnson take the oath at his hurried 1963 swearing-in?
A Catholic missal
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.
Q 28Why did Chief Justice Roberts re-administer Barack Obama's oath the day after the 2009 ceremony?
The words had been jumbled
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.'
Q 29Which president started the tradition of reviewing the inaugural parade from a stand at the White House in 1881?
James Garfield
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.
Q 30Which president is said to have fled his own 1829 White House reception through a window to escape the crush?
Andrew Jackson
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.