From Kennedy to Trump: US presidential inaugurations throughout history
As a historic inauguration week opens in the United States for President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration ceremony on January 20, let's take a look back at the transition of presidential power in the nation.
Barack Obama
Barack Obama is sworn in as 44th US president by Chief Justice John Roberts beside wife Michelle on January 20, 2009, at the Capitol in Washington, DC. Obama took the oath on the same Bible used to swear in President Abraham Lincoln, after the presidential inaugural committee said the Lincoln Bible would be borrowed from the collections at the Library of Congress.
(Photograph:AFP)
George H.W. Bush
George H.W. Bush is sworn in as president by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, Jan. 20, 1989.
Bush, the 41st president of the United States and the father of the 43rd, who steered the nation through a tumultuous period in world affairs but was denied a second term after support for his presidency collapsed under the weight of an economic downturn, died on November 30, 2018. He was 94.
(Photograph:Jose R. Lopez © The New York Times)
Richard Nixon
Picture dated 20 January 1973 of Republican president Richard Nixon taking an oath on the Bible, next to his wife Patricia (C), during his second investiture day in Washington.
First elected in 1968 at the American presidency and re-elected in 1972, Richard Nixon had to resign in August 1974 after the Watergate scandal.
(Photograph:AFP)
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (R) is sworn in as the 35th US president by Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren (L) in front of the Capitol in Washington on January 20, 1961. Attending are, at the first row, US former President Dwight D. Eisenhower (L), US Vice President Lyndon Johnson (2nd R) and US former Vice President Richard Nixon (R).
(Photograph:AFP)