“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”―Franklin D. Roosevelt, Second Inaugural Address, delivered on this date in 1937

The first Presidential Inauguration held on January 20 was Franklin Roosevelt’s second inaugural (seen at top), 80 years ago today.

The 20th Amendment, ratified in 1933, pushed back the date for the start of a new presidential term from March 4 to January 20 in recognition that the length of time needed to notify winners and losers and transport a new president-elect to Washington, DC, was much shorter than it had been. Roosevelt was inaugurated twice more on two subsequent January 20s.

There have been twenty swearings-in of U.S. Presidents on January 20; today’s will be the twenty-first.
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“People, feelings, everything! Double! Two people in each person. There’s also a person exactly the opposite of you, like the unseen part of you, somewhere in the world, and he waits in ambush.”―Patricia Highsmith, Strangers on a Train

Patricia Highsmith (above) was born on this date in 1921. She wrote twenty-two novels and many short stories, most of which are psychological thrillers.

Many of these have since been made into films. One character, Tom Ripley, appears in five novels, The Talented Mr. Ripley being the first, in which he kills 10 people directly, causes the deaths of several others, and is charming company when he is not murdering: “Mr. Greenleaf was such a decent fellow himself, he took it for granted that everybody else in the world was decent, too. Tom had almost forgotten such people existed.”
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Thomas Davenport, inventor of the electric motor, published the first issue of a new periodical on this date in 1840 that carried a mouthful of a title: The Electro-Magnet, and Mechanics Intelligencer. It was the first technical journal, the first periodical that had electricity as its only topic, and it was the first publication on the planet that was printed on a press run on electricity.

It was also a failure as a publication: Davenport could not attract enough subscribers to sustain the journal and he folded it after only three issues.

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On this date in 1644, something strange was seen in the waters off what is now the North End of Boston. It qulifies as America’s first USO sighting: Unidentified Submerged Object.
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