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21 January 2017

9:00 AM

21 January 2017

9:00 AM

Starting cold

Why is US Presidential Inauguration Day always on 20 January?

— The date was moved from 4 March in the 20th amendment to the US constitution, passed on 23 January 1933, but it is hard to find any significance to the date. The change was made in an attempt to reduce the lame-duck period of an outgoing president, though it did increase the risk of a repeat of what happened in 1841 when William Henry Harrison was sworn in.

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