20th January: US President Inauguration Day

It's US President Inauguration Day. Here are 10 things you might not know about presidential inaugurations.

1. 20 January has been the date of the swearing in of a new president since 1937. Before that, the ceremony was held on 4 March. Should 20 January fall on a Sunday, though, the ceremony would take place on the following day, Monday 21st.
2. Since 1981, the ceremony has been held at the Capitol's West Front. An urban legend maintains that Ronald Reagan chose this location so that he would be facing his home state of California.
3. The inauguration for the first U.S. president, George Washington, was held on April 30, 1789, at Federal Hall in New York City. He was sworn in by Robert Livingston, the Chancellor of the State of New York.
4. The new Vice-President will be sworn in on the same day.
5. The only constitutional part of the ceremony is the actual oath, where the President says "I, <full name>, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." Everything else that happens over the ten days of celebrations is by tradition.
6. It's not even constitutional that the President swears the oath on a Bible, although most of them do. Often they'll use a family Bible. In 2013 Barack Obama used a Bible that belonged to Martin Luther King Jr.
7. Immediately after the presidential oath, the United States Marine Band performs four ruffles and flourishes, followed by Hail to the Chief, while a 21-gun salute is fired. The new President makes an inaugural address (George Washington's second address was the shortest at 135 words; William Henry Harrison's was the longest at 8,495 words).
8. Since 1805, it has become tradition for the president to parade down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House. The only President not to do so was Ronald Reagan during his second inauguration in 1985, because the weather was too awful. He had, however, done so in 1981. Jimmy Carter walked the whole distance in 1977, but since then, they drive most of it, for security reasons. Once there, it is customary for the president, vice-president, their respective families and leading members of the government to watch an Inaugural Parade from the edge of the North Lawn.
9. Ronald Reagan's first inauguration in 1981 was the warmest on record (55 °F at noon). The coldest was his second, (7 °F at noon).
10. The first inauguration known to have been photographed was that of James Buchanan in 1857; the first to be filmed was that of William McKinley in 1897, the first broadcast on radio was the second inauguration of Calvin Coolidge in 1925; the first to be televised was the second inauguration of Harry S Truman in 1949; the first to be televised in colour was John F Kennedy's in 1961 and the first to be made available live on the internet was Bill Clinton's in 1997.

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