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Why is the presidential inauguration on January 20th? Inauguration day is on January 20th because the 20th Amendment to the Constitution changed it in 1933. The new president of the United States of America is sworn in on January 20th. There is a big spectacle, which is attended by thousands of people. The president swears an oath, gives a speech, there is sometimes a parade, and sometimes a party. The president sets out their goals and tries to show how they are different to the last incumbent. The whole thing costs a fortune and is a security nightmare, but it is tradition. Trump’s inauguration is predicted to cost about $200 million. That is a lot of money to spend on one day. Most of the money comes from private donors, such as all of the tech heads that were in attendance, although some does come from taxpayers. The price of inaugurations has gone up a lot. Bill Clinton’s inauguration in 1993 cost $19.5 million. It seems like there should be a better use for $200 million than to spend it on an inauguration. The first inauguration was that of President George Washington, the first president of the United States, on April 30th, 1789. Washington was supposed to become president on March 4th, which Congress had set as the beginning of presidential terms, but it wasn’t possible. Congress needed to get together to verify the Electoral College votes, but not enough people could assemble. In fact, it was six years after the end of the War of Independence in 1783 before Washington could be elected president. It took six years because the British needed to remove all of their troops and all of their connections. Each state government had to set itself up properly and rebuild after the war. The Continental Congress had to write the constitution and it had to be ratified. All of that took a long time. They were finally ready to have their first election in 1788 and Washington was elected. Congress set March 4th 1789 as the date to have his inauguration, and there doesn’t seem to be any reason why they chose March 4th. It was a date that was suitably far enough away from the election for everything to be made ready. It turned out that it wasn’t quite far enough away from the election and Washington didn’t end up getting sworn in until the end of April. So, why did the inauguration move to January 20th from March 4th? The change was made in 1933 and it happened because of technology. Elections were always held in November, and it made sense to have the presidential term start in March because the United States is a very large country and it took people a long time to travel from one place to another. For Congress to meet, or for the president and his cabinet to gather, could take months. And, as more states joined and the US got bigger, that became even more difficult. The railroad went some way to help, but trains didn’t travel to all of the states and it still took a long time for people to get to the capital. By the start of the 20th century, it was possible to travel much more quickly. Planes were not yet widely available, but trains certainly were. It was also possible to drive across the country in a few days. Three months before the start of a presidential term no longer seemed necessary. It also created the problem of a lame-duck president. A lame-duck president is one who is still in power but doesn’t really have any power to do anything because the next president will probably reverse all of his decisions. The current president will also probably put off making difficult decisions so that their successor has to deal with the consequences. The inauguration date was changed to January by Franklin D Roosevelt. He put it before Congress and they ratified the 20th Amendment to the Constitution. He wanted it changed because he was forced to put off acting on the Great Recession until he came to office on March 4th, 1933. The Great Recession had started in 1929 and it had reached horrific levels. Roosevelt won the election with his promise of a “New Deal”, which was a way to deal with the recession. He was eager to put it into practice, but he had to wait, and the incumbent president, Herbert Hoover, didn’t, or couldn’t do anything, for those three months. As soon as he came to power, he asked Congress to change the rules, which they did. January 20th is about 11 weeks after the election and that seemed like a long enough amount of time to recount ballots and get everything ready, so January 20th it became. And that is what I learned today.  Try these: - #1184 Why does the year start on January 1st? - #497 Why is Washington DC the capital of the United States? - #114 What happened to smallpox? - #1018 Why are the Secret Service in charge of protecting the president of the USA? - #545 When did April Fools' Day start? Sources https://www.history.com/news/why-does-inauguration-day-fall-on-january-20 https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/money-and-power/a63443351/presidential-inauguration-costs-payment-explained https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/presidential-election-of-1789 https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/The_Significance_of_March_4.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_inauguration_of_George_Washington https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_inauguration https://time.com/7207859/why-inauguration-day-is-on-january-20 https://ilearnedthistoday.com/index.php/2024/10/05/how-did-the-great-lakes-form/ Read the full article

Keep the holiday spirit alive, I guess?

Quote of the day. "The true nature of every human being is kindness. ♡ ♡ ♡ #InfiniteCalendar #Kindness #KindnessMatters #January20th #2023 #QuoteOfTheDay #Aalborg #Denmark (at Aalborg, Denmark) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cnoyi5kMaIw/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=