“Fun” facts about Inauguration Day
Answering your questions about the timing of the indoor inauguration ceremony.
Civics can be fun. I hope you will find something interesting or distracting in today’s post. If you know other fun facts about Inauguration Day, please share them in the comments.
Has Inauguration Day always been on Jan. 20?
President George Washington was inaugurated on March 4 and that was the traditional date until the Constitution was amended in 1933. According to the Library of Congress, Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first president to be sworn into office on Jan. 20, for his second term in 1937. Congress changed the presidential inauguration date from March 4 to Jan. 20 with the passage of the Twentieth Amendment. The amendment was designed to shorten the time between the November election and the new president and new Congress starting work. Previously, it took a lot longer to tally the results of the election, necessitating the longer wait. The Twentieth Amendment says the previous Congress ends it work and the new Congress begins at noon on Jan. 3. The switchover for president and vice president happens at noon on Jan. 20.
How often does MLK Jr. Day fall on the same day as Inauguration Day?
Only 14 presidents have had their inaugurations on Jan. 20 and only one – Bill Clinton in 1997 – has been inaugurated on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The national holiday was designated in 1983, and because presidents are only inaugurated every four years, it won’t happen very often. The next time Martin Luther King Jr. Day falls on Jan. 20 when there’s an inauguration scheduled will be in 2053.
According to The Providence Journal, which wrote a whole story on this topic, President Barack Obama can be partially counted as celebrating his second term on MLK Day, because Jan. 20 fell on a Sunday, when he said his oath in a private ceremony. He held a public event the next day, which happened to be MLK Day.
Is Inauguration Day a national holiday?
According to the Federal Office of Personnel Management, Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a national holiday and government employees get the day off with pay. Inauguration Day is only a federal holiday for U.S. government employees who work in the vicinity of Washington, D.C., including parts of Virginia and Maryland.
What about the presidential inauguration is written into law?
According to the History Channel, most inauguration traditions are just that, traditions. One part included in the Constitution is the oath of office. But even the oath has been modified by tradition. Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 added four words to the Constitution’s 35-word oath of office: “so help me God,” and every president since then has followed his lead.
The other parts of the celebration have changed over time, but some have been traditions since George Washington was chosen as our first president, including a morning church service before the swearing-in. One tradition that President Donald Trump broke but President Joe Biden resurrected was the post-election visit to the White House by the president-elect. Trump did not invite Biden to visit but Biden did welcome Trump to the White House last month.
A personal letter to the next president is a more modern tradition begun with President Ronald Reagan’s note to President George H.W. Bush in 1989. Bush followed the tradition by writing an encouraging note to President Bill Clinton four years later.
Where does the tradition for outdoor ceremonies come from?
Apparently the idea of celebrating the presidential inauguration outdoors is related to the tradition began with George Washington of an inauguration parade on the way to the ceremony, according to the History Channel. The parade moved to after the ceremony in 1841 and then 40 years later, a special platform was built outside the White House for James Garfield to watch the parade, according to the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremony Committee.
That committee says this week’s event is the 60th such ceremony, which are now usually held outside the U.S. Capitol. But not every inauguration has been held outdoors, in front of a crowd of people. Reagan’s first inauguration was outside in front of the Capitol in 1981 but his second was in the Capitol Rotunda on a sunny but bitter cold day when temperatures dropped in 7 degrees with a wind chill in the minus-10 to minus-20 Fahrenheit range, according to the Joint Congressional Committee. Their history site says Jan. 20, 1985, was the coldest inauguration day on record and also fell on a Sunday so Reagan was privately sworn and the scheduled public event the next day was also held inside.
This Monday was expected to be in the 20s in Washington, D.C. Most recent inaugurations have been held outside with temperatures ranging from the 30s to the 50s and it has usually been sunny. When George W. Bush was sworn in for his second term in 2005, there was about an inch of snow on the ground.
According to FOX Weather, President William Henry Harrison was inaugurated on March 4, 1941 on a bitterly cold and wet day. He died of Pneumonia one month later.
Go deeper: More to read
If you want a weather report and other information for nearly every presidential inauguration:
https://www.inaugural.senate.gov/past-inaugural-ceremonies/
A biased but interesting story about all the U.S. presidents on the White House website:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/
From the History Channel: surprising facts about the presidents:
https://www.history.com/news/us-presidents-facts
History about the first ladies:
https://www.whitehousehistory.org/collections/first-lady-biographies
First pets:
https://www.whitehousehistory.org/educational-resources/first-pets