January 20, 2021
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Presidential Inauguration
Today Joe Biden was inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States, and former president Trump famously skipped the ceremony. But Trump was not the first president to offer this slight to his successor.
John Adams was the first president to skip his successor's inauguration. For many years, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had been close friends, but as their political careers diverged, the two became rivals. When Jefferson was inaugurated on March 4, 1801, Adams was nowhere to be found. Eight hours before the big event, he'd left Washington and started making his way back to his family farm in Braintree, Massachusetts. This made Adams the first president who chose to skip his successor's swearing-in ceremony.
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Today's Random Fact:
TOP HATS WERE ONCE A TREND AT INAUGURATIONS.
For years, one of the odder parts of the pomp and circumstance of the inaugural festivities was that the man about to get sworn in always donned a top hat. It's not clear when or why this tradition started, but it dates back to at least James Garfield's inauguration in 1881. Why it endured long after top hats went out of style is up for debate, although some historians speculate that wearing the formal out-of-date headgear gave the inauguration another little touch of ceremony.
Kennedy was the last president to sport a top hat at his inauguration in 1961. No-nonsense Lyndon Johnson left the fashion statement off the guest list in 1965, thereby depriving the world of what would surely have been hilarious photos of LBJ in a ridiculous hat.
Bonus Fact:
THE NIXON PIGEON MASSACRE.
Richard Nixon didn't want his 1973 inauguration to be marred by a bunch of annoying pigeons. He requested that tree branches along the parade route be treated with a chemical called Roost No More, which would supposedly make the birds' feet itch so they wouldn't want to perch above Tricky Dick's motorcade. The inaugural committee spent $13,000 to comply with this anti-pigeon policy, but Nixon got a bit more than he expected.
The pigeons didn't just sit on the branches, they wolfed down the Roost No More, which proved to be highly toxic to birds. Instead of dealing with the minor hassle of live pigeons roosting in trees, Nixon's parade was marred by the macabre spectacle of dead and dying pigeons littering the route.
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