Today in History—March 4: Happy (Old) Inauguration Day
On this day in history, a whole bunch of people became president.
Here’s the roll call: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, James K. Polk, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, James Garfield, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
For more than a century, March 4 was the country’s official Inauguration Day, a tradition that began with George Washington’s second term in 1793 and continued until FDR’s first in 1933. (If March 4 was a Sunday, the inauguration was held Monday.) The date was chosen because it’s the day the U.S. Constitution took effect.
The tradition was supposed to start with Washington’s first inauguration, but a snowy March delayed Congress. Too few members were present to count ballots, and the timeline slipped. So it started with Washington’s second term—where he delivered a tidy 135-word mic drop of an address.
In 1829 Andrew Jackson turned the day into a public spectacle. Before that, inaugurations were mostly contained in Congress chambers. Jackson opened the doors—literally—and rowdy crowds trashed White House furniture.
Then there’s William Henry Harrison’s lengthy inaugural (the longest ever, at 8,445 words), which, it’s been speculated, might’ve killed him. March 4, 1841, was especially cold, and he spoke outdoors for nearly two hours. He died a month later from an illness.
The day evolved with the times: Warren G. Harding traveled to his inauguration by car in 1921, and Calvin Coolidge’s 1925 inaugural was broadcast on the radio—both firsts.
The tradition ended with FDR’s “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” which isn’t a bad way to go out.
Technically, there was no president from 6:30 am on March 4, 1849 (when James K. Polk vacated the office), until March 5 at noon (when Zachary Taylor took the oath).
What changed? The Twentieth Amendment. It was ratified in 1933. It moved Inauguration Day to January 20, starting with FDR’s second term. Presidents no longer needed weeks to travel, and ballots no longer took months to count (…usually). Plus, lame-duck officials no longer lingered in power for months after losing elections.
And just like that, the most crowded date in presidential history disappeared from the calendar.
- 7: Failed bills to make Inauguration Day a public holiday
- 48 ℉: Temperature at William Henry Harrison’s inauguration
- $4: Cost of a ticket to attend James Madison’s inaugural ball (the country’s first)
- 1789: The U.S. Constitution takes effect
- 1837: Chicago is incorporated as a city, population 4,200
- 1979: NASA’s Voyager 1 photographs a ring of Jupiter for the first time
