Jessie Besson
The President reads the oath, escaped chickens or frozen canaries are incidents that have occurred at several inauguration ceremonies.
On 7/1/1789, in the first US presidential election, George Washington won the absolute victory, winning all electoral votes.
Crowds gathered outside the White House when Andrew Jackson first took office in 1829 Photo: Library of Congress
Just before Washington took the oath, the organizers discovered they were missing a Bible and had to quickly borrow one from the nearby Freemason branch.
When Andrew Jackson took office in 1829, he welcomed a noisy crowd of 20,000 supporters to celebrate at the White House.
"The women passed out, the men punched each other with blood in their noses, the chaos scene could not be described," said one guest.
Despite the very cold weather on his inauguration day 1841, William Henry Harrison refused to wear a coat or hat and insisted on going to the White House on horseback instead of riding a covered carriage.
But the irony is that the presidency of Harrison is the shortest term in the country's history.
Before Abraham Lincoln's second inauguration in early 1865, Vice President-elect Andrew Johnson drank whiskey to ease nervousness and relieve symptoms because he had typhoid fever near that point.
The cowboy threw a rope at President Dwight D Photo: AP
Lincoln later said Johnson was negligent but "not a drunkard".
Ulysses S. Grant's second inauguration in March 1873 was one of the coldest March days in Washington's history.
That evening the gala took place in a space temporarily set up for the day of inauguration.
This is a modal window.
Beginning of dialog window.
End of dialog window.
Barack Obama was sworn in for the first time in Washington, on January 20, 2009 Photo: Reuters
45 generations of US presidents.
During Dwight D. Eisenhower's first inauguration in 1953, he broke with tradition by reciting his self-made prayers after taking an oath, instead of kissing the Bible.
He then hosted a parade with about 62 bands and 26,000 participants.
John F. Kennedy's inauguration in 1961 was full of off-script moments.
At Richard Nixon's second inauguration gala in 1973, held at the Smithsonian Museum of History and Technology (now the American Museum of History), a chicken escaped from a farm exhibition.
At Barack Obama's first inauguration in 2009, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts was the one who read the oath for Obama to repeat.
Constitutional scholars then questioned whether Obama was sworn by the right standards.
