Anniversary of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s First Inauguration – Pic of the Week

Today is the anniversary of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first inauguration, which took place on March 4, 1933.  Historically speaking, it was the last presidential inauguration held in March.  As I wrote in the post on the 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the Confederation Congress had set the date for the first Congress to be celebrated on the first Wednesday in March. That date happened to be March 4, 1789.

Earlier, in 1792, Congress had passed a law setting the presidential term to begin on March 4th as well.  However, with the passage and subsequent ratification of the 20th Amendment, presidential terms were set to begin and end on January 20th while the commencement of a new Congress was moved to January 3rd.  Although the 20th Amendment had been passed by Congress in 1932, state ratification was not completed until January 23, 1933. This meant that President Franklin D. Roosevelt would not begin his first term until March 4th of that year.

Personally, if I were to choose a month for inauguration, it would be April when Washington, D.C. is at its loveliest with every type of spring blossom and tree–particularly our fabulous cherry blossom trees.