Today on President Barack Obama’s second inauguration is a good time to look back at other presidential inaugurations:
Abraham Lincoln’s first inauguration was held on March 4, 1861.
There were assassination threats to Lincoln’s life from the moment of his election. Private detective Allan Pinkerton had taken the president-elect off the train on which he was scheduled to arrive and placed him on a train coming in to Washington, D.C. overnight in order to safeguard Lincoln’s arrival.
Lincoln took the oath of office in front of the dismantled dome of the Capitol building. The old wooden dome had been taken down and was being replaced with a cast iron one. In 2009 the unfinished Capitol was depicted on one of the one cent coins that was released that year.
This information is courtesy of Douglas Westfall of the Paragon Agency, publishers of first-person stories of America. Thank you, Doug!