Wednesday 20 January 2021

a more perfect union

 From the Latin augur—referring to the rites of Roman priests seeking to interpret if the gods willed a public official to assume office, Joe Biden will be sworn in at noon today, Eastern Standard Time, a moment after Kamala Harris, as the forty-sixth president of the United States of America.

Other individuals who share this same inaugural day, set in law in 1937 except when the 20th falls on a Sunday and then conducted in private with public ceremonies taking place the following day, include Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953), John F. Kennedy (1961), Richard M. Nixon (1969), Jimmy Carter (1977), Ronald Reagan (1981), George H.W. Bush (1989), William Jefferson Clinton (1993), George W. Bush (2001), Barack Obama (2009) and Biden’s immediate predecessor in 2017.