Saturday, December 15, 2012

Go Onboard the Queen Mary Sunday Night

Go onboard the Queen Mary this Sunday night at 8:15pm (ET) via C-SPAN2 BookTV and watch Jim Bendat talk about  his book, Democracy's Big Day: The Inauguration of Our President, 1789-2013.

One of the more unusual topics Jim will bring up is that the public swearing-in ceremony for President Barack Obama will be on January 21, 2013. It happens that this coming January 20th falls on a Sunday, so "Democracy's Big Day" inauguration will be postponed a day. A private swearing-in ceremony will be held on Sunday. No matter what happens on Sunday, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts will get a second chance at performing a "do-over" on the next day. 

This unusual circumstance happens every 28 years, which is also known as a dominical cycle. Ordinarily, the 28-year cycle is broken when spilling over into another century, but thanks to the Y2K anomaly the dominical cycle stayed in tact. The first time an Inauguration fell on a Sunday was in 1821 for President Monroe’s second swearing-in.The last time an inauguration fell on a Sunday was on January 20, 1985, which was the occasion for President Ronald Reagan second inauguration.
 


1 comment:

Tom Van Dyke said...

Why no inauguration on a Sunday? Because Sunday = the Lord's Day!

;-)