More on Trump's inauguration: the echoes of history

I wrote yesterday about Trump’s return to office and about his inauguration speech. Trump loves to free-wheel and leave the script. He did not do so yesterday - or at least not obviously.

One reason for that might be because his speech was a long one. The longest, in fact, since Herbert Hoover in 1929.

At over 2,800 words, he did not come close to the longest in history (so far). The record holder is William Harrison who on 4 March 1841 gave an address that was 8,445 words long. It was not exactly a barn-stormer.

To give a couple of examples: