Inauguration Events

1789 Apr 30 Washington delivers first inaugural address
On April 30, 1789, George Washington delivered his first inaugural address to a joint session of Congress, assembled in Federal Hall in the nation's new capital, New York City. The newly-...
1793 Mar 4 George Washington's second inaugural address
President Washington's second oath of office was taken in the Senate Chamber of Congress Hall in Philadelphia on March 4, the date fixed by the Continental Congress for inaugurations. B...
1797 Mar 4 John Adams delivers his inaugural address
The first Vice President became the second President of the United States. His opponent in the election, Thomas Jefferson, had won the second greatest number of electoral votes and ther...
1801 Mar 4 Thomas Jefferson is inaugurated as the third president of the United States
Chief Justice John Marshall administered the first executive oath of office ever taken in the new federal city in the new Senate Chamber (now the Old Supreme Court Chamber) of the parti...
1805 Mar 4 Thomas Jefferson's second inauguration
The second inauguration of Mr. Jefferson followed an election under which the offices of President and Vice President were to be separately sought, pursuant to the newly adopted 12th Am...
1809 Mar 4 James Madison is inaugurated as the fourth president of the United States
Chief Justice John Marshall administered the oath of office in the Hall of the House of Representatives (now National Statuary Hall). Subsequently the oath by Presidents-elect, with few e...
1813 Mar 4 James Madison delivers his second inaugural address
Chief Justice John Marshall administered the oath of office in the Hall of the House of Representatives. The United States was at war with Great Britain at the time of James Madison's se...
1817 Mar 4 James Monroe is inaugurated as the fifth president of the United States
Because the Capitol was under reconstruction after the fire, President-elect Monroe offered to take his oath of office in the House Chamber of the temporary "Brick Capitol," located o...
1821 Mar 5 James Monroe's second inauguration
In 1821, March 4 fell on a Sunday for the first time that presidential inaugurations had been observed. Although his previous term had expired on Saturday, the President waited until th...
1825 Mar 4 John Quincy Adams is inaugurated as the sixth president of the United States
The only son of a former President to be elected to the Nation's highest office, John Quincy Adams was chosen by the House of Representatives when the electoral college could not determi...
1829 Mar 4 Andrew Jackson is inaugurated as the seventh president of the United States
The election of Andrew Jackson was heralded as a new page in the history of the Republic. The first military leader elected President since George Washington, he was much admired by the ...
1833 Mar 4 Andrew Jackson delivers his second inaugural address
Cold weather and the President's poor health caused the second inauguration to be much quieter than the first. The President's speech was delivered to a large assembly inside the Hall o...
1837 Mar 4 Martin Van Buren is inaugurated as the eighth president of the United States
The ailing President Jackson and his Vice President Van Buren rode together to the Capitol from the White House in a carriage made of timbers from the U.S.S. Constitution. Chief Justice ...
1841 Mar 4 William Henry Harrison is inaugurated as the ninth president of the United States
President Harrison has the dual distinction among all the Presidents of giving the longest inaugural speech and of serving the shortest term of office. Known to the public as "Old Tippec...
1845 Mar 4 James K. Polk is inaugurated as the 11th president of the United States
The inaugural ceremonies of former Tennessee Governor and Speaker of the House James Knox Polk were conducted before a large crowd that stood in the pouring rain. The popular politician ...
1849 Mar 5 Zachary Taylor is inaugurated as the 12th president of the United States
For the second time in the history of the Republic, March 4 fell on a Sunday. The inaugural ceremony was postponed until the following Monday, raising the question as to whether the N...
1853 Mar 4 Franklin Pierce is inaugurated as the 14th president of the United States
On religious grounds, former Senator and Congressman Franklin Pierce chose "to affirm" rather than "to swear" the executive oath of office. He was the only President to use the choice off...
1857 Mar 4 James Buchanan is inaugurated as the 15th president of the United States
The Democratic Party chose another candidate instead of their incumbent President when they nominated James Buchanan at the national convention. Since the Jackson Administration, he had...
1861 Mar 4 Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln
"The mystic chords of memory . . . will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." —Abraham Lincoln
1865 Mar 4 Lincoln Delivers Second Inaugural Address
Abraham Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address on March 4, 1865, during his inauguration at the start of his second term as President of the United States. At a time when victory ...
1869 Mar 4 Ulysses S. Grant is inaugurated as the 18th president of the United States
General Grant was the first of many Civil War officers to become President of the United States. He refused to ride in the carriage to the Capitol with President Johnson, who then decided...
1873 Mar 4 Ulysses S. Grant's second inauguration
Frigid temperatures caused many of the events planned for the second inauguration to be abandoned. The thermometer did not rise much above zero all day, persuading many to avoid the cere...
1877 Mar 5 Rutherford B. Hayes is inaugurated as the 19th president of the United States
The outcome of the election of 1876 was not known until the week before the inauguration itself. Democrat Samuel Tilden had won the greater number of popular votes and lacked only one ele...
1881 Mar 4 James Garfield is inaugurated as the 20th president of the United States
Snow on the ground discouraged many spectators from attending the ceremony at the Capitol. Congressman Garfield had been nominated on his party's 36th ballot at the convention; and he had...
1885 Mar 4 Grover Cleveland is inaugurated as the 22nd president of the United States
On the East Portico of the Capitol, the former Governor of New York was administered the oath of office by Chief Justice Morrison Waite. A Democrat whose popularity, in part, was the re...
1889 Mar 4 Benjamin Harrison is inaugurated as the 23rd president of the United States
Nominated on the 8th ballot of the Republican convention, the Civil War veteran, jurist, and Senator from Indiana was the only grandson of a President to be elected to the office, as wel...
1893 Mar 4 Grover Cleveland is inaugurated, for the second time, as the 24th president of the United States
A light snowfall the night before the inauguration discouraged many spectators from attending President Cleveland's second inauguration. The Democrat had decisively defeated President Har...
1897 Mar 4 William McKinley is inaugurated as the 25th president of the United States
A Civil War officer, and a Governor and Congressman from Ohio, Mr. McKinley took the oath on a platform erected on the north East Front steps at the Capitol. It was administered by Chie...
1901 Mar 4 William McKinley's second inauguration
The second inauguration was a patriotic celebration of the successes of the recently concluded Spanish American War. The new Vice President, Theodore Roosevelt, was a popular figure fro...
1905 Mar 4 Theodore Roosevelt is inaugurated as the 26th president of the United States
The energetic Republican President had taken his first oath of office upon the death of President McKinley, who died of an assassin's gunshot wounds on September 14, 1901. Mr. Roosevelt...
1909 Mar 4 William Howard Taft is inaugurated as the 27th president of the United States
A blizzard the night before caused the ceremonies to be moved into the Senate Chamber in the Capitol. The oath of office was administered for the sixth time by Chief Justice Melville Ful...
1913 Mar 4 First Inauguration of Woodrow Wilson as 28th US President
Woodrow Wilson's First Inaugural Address THERE has been a change of government. It began two years ago, when the House of Representatives became Democratic by a decisive majority. It ...
1917 Mar 5 Woodrow Wilson's second inauguration
March 4 was a Sunday, but the President took the oath of office at the Capitol in the President's Room that morning. The oath was taken again the next day, administered by Chief Justice ...
1921 Mar 4 Warren G. Harding is inaugurated as the 29th president of the United States
Senator Harding from Ohio was the first sitting Senator to be elected President. A former newspaper publisher and Governor of Ohio, the President-elect rode to the Capitol with President...
1925 Mar 4 Calvin Coolidge is inaugurated as the 30th president of the United States
In 1923 President Coolidge first took the oath of office, administered by his father, a justice of the peace and a notary, in his family's sitting room in Plymouth, Vermont. President Har...
1929 Mar 4 Herbert Hoover is inaugurated as the 31st president of the United States
Popular opinion for the engineer, humanitarian, and Secretary of Commerce brought the President-elect to office with expectations of continued national growth and prosperity. Chief Justi...
1933 Mar 4 Franklin D. Roosevelt is inaugurated as the 32nd president of the United States
The former Governor of New York rode to the Capitol with President Hoover. Pressures of the economy faced the President-elect as he took his oath of office from Chief Justice Charles Evan...
1937 Jan 20 Franklin Roosevelt's second presidential inauguration
For the first time the inauguration of the President was held on January 20, pursuant to the provisions of the 20th amendment to the Constitution. Having won the election of 1936 by a wi...
1941 Jan 20 Franklin Roosevelt's third inauguration
The only chief executive to serve more than two terms, President Roosevelt took office for the third time as Europe and Asia engaged in war. The oath of office was administered by Chief J...
1945 Jan 20 Franklin Roosevelt's fourth inauguration
The fourth inauguration was conducted without fanfare. Because of the expense and impropriety of festivity during the height of war, the oath of office was taken on the South Portico of...
1949 Jan 20 Harry Truman, the 33rd president of the United States, is inaugurated
A former county judge, Senator and Vice President, Harry S. Truman had taken the oath of office first on April 12, 1945, upon the death of President Roosevelt. Mr. Truman's victory in...
1953 Jan 20 Dwight D. Eisenhower is inaugurated as the 34th president of the United States
The Republican Party successfully promoted the candidacy of the popular General of the Army in the 1952 election over the Democratic candidate, Adlai Stevenson. The oath of office was ad...
1957 Jan 21 Dwight Eisenhower's second inauguration
January 20 occurred on a Sunday, so the President took the oath in the East Room at the White House that morning. The next day he repeated the oath of office on the East Portico of th...
1961 Jan 20 Kennedy's Inauguration
On January 20, 1961, John F. Kennedy distinguished his inaugural ceremony with a poetry reading by fellow New Englander Robert Frost. Blinded by the sun's glare on the snow-covered Capito...
1965 Jan 20 Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th president of the United States, is inaugurated for his first full term
President Johnson had first taken the oath of office on board Air Force One on November 22, 1963, the day President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. The election of 1964 was a landsli...
1969 Jan 20 Richard M. Nixon is inaugurated as the 37th president of the United States
An almost-winner of the 1960 election, and a close winner of the 1968 election, the former Vice President and California Senator and Congressman had defeated the Democratic Vice Presiden...
1973 Jan 20 Richard Nixon's second inauguration
The election of 1972 consolidated the gains that the President had made with the electorate in 1968. Although the Democratic Party maintained majorities in the Congress, the presidential...
1977 Jan 20 Jimmy Carter is inaugurated as the 39th president of the United States
The Democrats reclaimed the White House in the 1976 election. The Governor from Georgia defeated Gerald Ford, who had become President on August 9, 1974, upon the resignation of Preside...
1981 Jan 20 Ronald Reagan Delivers His First Inaugural Address
The first inauguration of Ronald Reagan as the 40th President of the United States was held on January 20, 1981. The inauguration marked the commencement of the first four-year term of Ro...
1981 Jan 20 Ronald Reagan is inaugurated as the 40th president of the United States
For the first time, an inauguration ceremony was held on the terrace of the West Front of the Capitol. Chief Justice Warren Burger administered the oath of office to the former broadcaste...