INAUGURATION DAY IN THE USA

JOE Biden will be sworn in as the 46th President of the United States of America on Wednesday after a controversial battle for the White House.

Outgoing president Donald Trump has pledged to stay away from proceedings after being impeached for a record second time.

It means that even though he will absent, Trump, 74, will still loom large over the handover ceremony to welcome in Biden, 78.

Here are a few things you might not know about Inauguration Day...

1THE

first ever U. S. President, George Washington, was so poor he had to borrow money to travel to New York City for his first inauguration in 1789.

2HE

gave the shortest address in history during his second inauguration on March 4, 1793, with a speech just 135 words long. 3BARACK

Obama had to be sworn in a second time after reading out the oath of office incorrectly. It was performed again privately the following day. 4DESPITE

snow on William Henry Harrison’s inauguration day on March 4, 1841, he refused to move his ceremony indoors – and died of pneumonia just 31 days later.

5

GEORGE Washington is credited with adding the line “So help me God” after he finished the oath. Teddy Roosevelt replaced it with “and thus I swear”. 6

THE only woman to have ever sworn in a President was District Judge Sarah T Hughes, who swore in Lyndon B Johnson on board Air Force One after the assassination of John F Kennedy in 1963. 7WHEN

incoming Vice President Andrew Johnson got up to the podium to take his oath in 1965, he was so drunk his speech was incoherent and rambling.

BEING pissed on ceremony didn’t later stop Johnson from taking over after the assassination of his predecessor, Abraham Lincoln.

HIGH winds and icy temperatures led to the food and champagne at the 1873 inauguration of Ulysses S Grant freezing.

10

IN 1973, Richard Nixon’s parade was marred by the spectacle of dead and dying pigeons littering the route after he ordered an ‘ itchy feet’ chemical spray that was merely supposed to stop the birds roosting.