Barack Obama Inaugurated

Barack Obama (left) is sworn in as president of the United States on January 21, 2013. Chief Justice John Roberts is at right.

Barack Obama was sworn in to office as president of the United States on January 21, 2013, in the nation’s capital. Obama officially began his second term with the swearing-in ceremony, placing his hand upon two Bibles—one that belonged to Martin Luther King Jr. and the other once belonging to Abraham Lincoln. In his second inaugural speech, Obama sounded themes of equality, fairness, and collective action through government. Attendance at the inauguration was down from the record number that came out for Obama’s first inauguration in 2009.

Over the course of the previous 56 U.S. presidential inaugurations, the impact of media has made the event of increasingly greater national significance. In the republic’s early years, newspapers were the main source of news; the first inaugural address to be published on the morning of the ceremony was Thomas Jefferson’s in 1801. William McKinley’s inauguration a century later was the first to be filmed. Beginning with the inauguration of Calvin Coolidge, which was broadcast nationally by radio in 1925, every American could hear what went on. The inauguration of Harry Truman in 1949 was the first to be televised, and Bill Clinton’s second inauguration, in 1997, was the first to be carried live over the Internet.

The shortest speech in inaugural history was that of George Washington in 1793; the longest was William Henry Harrison’s in 1841. Harrison probably should have kept it shorter. Though he had survived numerous battles warring against Native Americans, Harrison contracted pneumonia amid the dreary weather on inauguration day, and he died less than five weeks later.

Image credit: www.whitehouse.gov

Related Links

• Fifty-seventh Presidential Inauguration: Facts, Firsts, and Precedents
  From the vantage point of Barack Obama’s second inauguration, this website looks back over the history of presidential inaugurations.
  (Source: senate.gov; accessed January 31, 2013)
• From Washington to Obama, Inauguration History
  Learn about 224 years of inauguration history; includes a photo gallery on Inaugural Firsts, as well as videos of the Marine Band, which has played at every inauguration since 1801, and of past inaugurations.
  (Source: Smithsonian.com; accessed January 31, 2013)
• Behind Inaugural Speeches, Meaningful Words
  Check out this interactive collection, powered by Wordle, that generates “word clouds” for various presidential inaugural speeches.
  (Source: Smithsonian.com; accessed January 31, 2013)
• Transcript: President Obama’s Second Inaugural Address
  This web page includes both a transcript and a video of Barack Obama’s second inaugural address.
  (Source: ABC News, January 21, 2013)
• 2013 Inauguration Event Resources
  This NEH web page includes a wealth of related links concerning presidential history: videos, images, transcripts of inaugural speeches, and much more.
  (Source: National Endowment for the Humanities; accessed January 31, 2013)