Those of us who call Wash­ing­ton DC home know the incon­ve­niences that go hand and hand with the hordes descend­ing on our city every four years for the Pres­i­den­tial Inau­gu­ra­tion.

To my fel­low Foggy Bot­tom res­i­dents I say chin up, it’ll all be worth it. We will truly be the cen­ter world this com­ing Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 21st as all eyes turn to Wash­ing­ton DC.

As we all know the Pres­i­den­tial Inau­gu­ra­tion occurs every four years and invites a spec­tac­u­lar amount of fan­fare. The new pres­i­dent gets his own day of feast­ing, pro­ces­sion, states­man­ship, and cel­e­bra­tion. The United States marks its tran­si­tion of gov­ern­ment with a day of events that have devel­oped over time to become our modern-day inauguration.

Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th Pres­i­dent of the United States on Jan­u­ary 20, 2009. The theme for his inau­gu­ra­tion then was “A New Birth of Free­dom,” which hon­ored the bicen­ten­nial of Abra­ham Lincoln’s birth. The theme of the 2013 Inau­gu­ra­tion is “Faith in America’s Future”, which recalls the instal­la­tion of the Statue of Free­dom on the Capi­tol Dome 150 years ago in 1863.

After the con­clu­sion of the Inau­gural Cer­e­monies and the lun­cheon, the Pres­i­dent and Vice Pres­i­dent will make their way down Penn­syl­va­nia Avenue to the White House, lead­ing a pro­ces­sion of cer­e­mo­nial mil­i­tary reg­i­ments, cit­i­zens’ groups, march­ing bands and floats. The Pres­i­dent, Vice Pres­i­dent, their spouses and spe­cial guests will then review the parade as it passes in front of the Pres­i­den­tial Review­ing Stand.

The Inau­gural parade is a cel­e­brated and much antic­i­pated tele­vised event for mil­lions of Amer­i­cans across the coun­try. The parade was first tele­vised in 1949, at the Inau­gu­ra­tion of Harry S. Tru­man. Jimmy Carter broke prece­dent in 1977 by walk­ing in the parade, from the Capi­tol to the White House, with his wife Ros­alynn and their daugh­ter Amy.

The parade is orga­nized by the Joint Task Force-National Cap­i­tal Region, and par­tic­i­pants are selected by the Pres­i­den­tial Inau­gural Committee.