Fourth of March
Several years ago an English journal, The Owl, published the following singular paragraph:
“It is not perhaps generally known to our readers that the reason which the founders of the American republic had for selecting the fourth of March for the inauguration of their President, was to avoid the occurrence of a dies non by the incidence of that date on a Sunday. By calculation it was ascertained that for many hundreds of years the quadrennial recurrence of that day in the year of election invariably falls on a week day.”
In the face of this absurdly incorrect statement, and before it was written, the fourth of March fell twice on Sunday,—in 1821 and in 1849,—so that Monroe’s second inauguration and General Taylor’s inauguration each took place on Monday, March 5.