Happy Presidents Day!

Since today is Presidents Day, I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge and honor my favorite president, Warren G. Harding of Ohio.  The former newspaper editor-turned-Senator was elected in 1920, by one of the largest landslides in American history.  (Interestingly enough, his opponent was another newspaper man from Ohio, James Cox.)  Harding was elected on a platform that promised a “return to normalcy” after the authoritarian excesses of Woodrow Wilson.  He was the first president to be elected in a national election in which all states allowed women to vote and he overwhelmingly won their vote.  A politician who remembered his friends and who had little trouble entertaining his constituents in his office, Warren Harding epitomized everything that was fun about the early 1920s.

And we have actual newsreel footage of Warren Harding’s inauguration!  For today’s blast of the past, here is newsreel footage of my favorite President renewing America’s greatness.  This footage is over 100 years old and, in all seriousness, it shows why film is so important.  The video below is not just a short movie of someone taking the oath of office in Washington, D.C.  Instead, it’s a portal into the past.  At a time when history itself is often altered to fit whatever the current narrative may be, it’s good that we can still see things for ourselves.