The ceremony was flanked with camouflaged guards, pop icons and messages of unity
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Squinting into the sun with a hand on the Bible, Joe Biden said the words he dreamed of uttering for at least half of his life.
“I, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States.”
Mr Biden, 78, had spent 36 years as a US senator, eight years as US vice president and tried three different times to reach the top job.
Here, standing before the US Capitol shortly before noon with relatives nearby and the world watching, he finally achieved his goal.
Yet as he looked away from John Roberts, the Supreme Court’s chief justice administering the oath of office, and across the grand sweep of Washington DC’s National Mall the scene was not the one he had pictured for so long.
Before him was the great and good of American politics not bunched together but sat on seats spread six feet apart, a reminder of the deadly Covid-19 pandemic which he is now in charge of tackling in the US.
A little further down Capitol Hill were scores of National Guard members, dressed in camouflage and holding guns – a sign of the threat of violence hanging over the event.
Beyond a newly installed 7ft fence – itself embodying the division of the country he now leads, erected after a mob of Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol – was a stretch of empty land.
Members of the National Guard gather near the US Capitol before the inauguration
Credit: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images North America
In a normal inauguration hundreds of thousands of Americans would be there, banners in hand, to see the moment power was peacefully transferred, the act on which US democracy relies.
But the Mall was closed to visitors. The US secret service considered a crowd too dangerous given fears of a repeat of the anger and bloodshed seen earlier this month in the city.
Instead, there was a sea of tiny American flags.
Mr Biden, a man of deep Catholic convictions – in part due to his Irish roots – had started the day at church.
He had spent his final night as a private citizen in Blair’s House, a building just across the street from the White House. It would be the closest he and Mr Trump would come to meeting in Washington.
Mr Trump, still disputing his election defeat, if no longer attempting to cling to power, had already announced he would skip the inauguration ceremony, becoming the first president in 152 years to do so.
Instead he got up early and held his own farewell event at a military base. Frank Sinatra’s My Way played as Air Force One took off with Mr Trump on board one last time.
Mr Biden headed to mass at the Cathedral of St Matthew the Apostle moments after Mr Trump had spoken, with US cable news channels carrying the split screen live.
Invited were not just Democratic congressional leaders but Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate leader who facilitated Mr Trump legislative wins and rarely spoke out against him.
It was an early sign of the unity message that dominated Mr Biden’s inauguration.
Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden attend services at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle with Congressional leaders prior the 59th Presidential inauguration ceremony
Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images North America
From there Mr Biden was driven in a motorcade more than a dozen cars deep, each black with flashing sirens, as law enforcement officers lined the street.
Arriving at the US Capitol, he walked hand-in-hand with his second wife Jill, who he credits with rebuilding his shattered life after that fatal car crash in 1972, up the steps of the building.
As the Bidens and Kamala Harris, the incoming US vice president and her husband Doug Emhoff, made their way through the Capitol, former US presidents were seated.
They had been introduced one by one, walking through an entrance draped in red fabric. “The honourable William J Clinton”; “The honourable George W Bush”; “The honourable Barack H Obama”.
Only Jimmy Carter, aged 96 and in frail health, was missing from the former presidents club – not including, once the clock struck noon, Mr Trump.
His deputy was there, however. Mike Pence, the US vice president, snubbed Mr Trump’s farewell speech to attend the inauguration. Later he chatted and laughed with his successor, Ms Harris.
Exactly two weeks earlier the stage where the audience sat, on the Capitol’s western side, had been mounted by seething Trump supporters trying to stop Mr Biden’s win being confirmed.
In a nod to that day of anger, Eugene Goodman, the black police officer widely praised for his attempts to hold back the rioters, was picked to escort Ms Harris to the ceremony.
The speeches preceding Mr Biden’s were heavy with symbolism, talking about the fragility of America’s democratic experiment but also optimism for what could come next.
“We pledge today never to take our democracy for granted,” said Amy Kolbuchar, the Democratic senator from Minnesota.
There was religion. Mr Biden, with a black face mask on and hands gloved from the cold, bowed his head as Reverend Leo Jeremiah O’Donovan III started his prayer.
“Gracious and merciful God, at this sacred time we come before you in need, indeed on our knees,” Rev O’Donovan said.
“But we come still more with hope and with our eyes raised anew to the vision of a more perfect union in our land.”
Mr Biden and Ms Harris watch as Lady Gaga walks away after singing the national anthem
Credit: Susan Walsh/AP Pool
There was also glamour. Lady Gaga, wearing a vast red dress and a black top with a brooch of a giant golden bird carrying a flower, sung the national anthem.
Jennifer Lopez, in all white with sparkling jewelled earrings, gave a medley of This Land Is Your Land and America the Beautiful.
Ms Harris’s oath of office, which had preceded Mr Biden’s, was historic in itself. The pair fist-bumped after she formally became the first woman, African-American and Asian-American to be vice president.
And then it was Mr Biden’s turn. When he lowered his right hand after uttering the crucial words, he smiled, turned left to his wife, accepted a kiss on the cheek and a hug.
Moments later he addressed the nation for the first time as the 46th US president. “This is America’s day”, he said, looking out at the Mall’s sea of flags. “This is democracy’s day”.
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