Smile: New Beginnings
Happy New Year! Hope you had a great holiday season. We most certainly did and meet the new year with optimism and hope. Speaking of which, no matter your personal and political beliefs, a big change begins Tuesday in the United States with the Inauguration. With that in mind, I dug up some trivia about one of America’s great dates of change.
Longest Speech: William Henry Harrison (March 4, 1861 — 8,445 words which took an hour and 45 minutes to deliver)
Shortest Speech: George Washington (March 4, 1793 — 135 words which took less than two minutes to deliver)
Coldest Inauguration Day: (January 21, 1985 — 7 degrees for Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration)
Largest Crowd: Nobody’s sure. Lyndon Johnson’s 1965 inauguration drew an estimated 1.2 million and Washington, D.C., officials stopped estimating after the 1995 Million Man March
Largest Parade: (January 20, 1953 — The four-hour, 32-minute affair for Dwight Eisenhower included 73 bands and 59 floats. There’s a limit now to 15,000 participants.
Most Inaugural Balls: (January 20, 1997 — 14, some of which saw a presidential appearance for only about 11 minutes.)
Oldest Bible: (March 4, 1933 — Franklin D. Roosevelt took the oath of office on a circa-1686 Dutch-language family bible.)
First Televised Inauguration (January 20, 1949 — Harry Truman)
First Inauguration Televised In Color: (January 20, 1961 — John F. Kennedy)
First Inauguration Broadcast Via Internet: (January 20, 1997 — The ceremony for Bill Clinton was broadcast live on the Internet.)
Aren’t those kinda neat? I don’t know. I read about so many different places in the world who don’t share our freedoms, and I remember how lucky we are to be in a country that has such a day every four years.
Got something that makes you smile? Please, do send it along!
And, here, as always are some interesting links to enjoy.
Big Smiles!
