Video: 'Thomas Jefferson - First Inauguration Address - March 4, 1801'

(Wednesday, March 4, 1801, approximately noon local time) — Vice President Thomas Jefferson, 57, was inaugurated today as the third president of the United States in the Senate chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., with Chief Justice John Marshall administering the oath of office.

Former U.S. Senator Aaron Burr, 45, of New York was also inaugurated as the third vice president of the United States.

Outgoing President John Adams, a Federalist, distraught over his loss of the 1800 presidential election (along with his running mate, Charles C. Pinckney) as well as the death of his son, Charles Adams, to alcoholism, left the President’s House at 4:00 a.m. on the early public stagecoach for Baltimore.

While it was the first time an outgoing President would not attend his successor’s inauguration, it did mark the first peaceful transfer of power from one political party to another in U.S. presidential history, now viewed as a hallmark of the nation’s democracy.

Jefferson’s was also the first Inauguration held in Washington, D.C. He broke precedent by walking to and from his swearing-in ceremony, rather than riding in a carriage as his predecessors did.

Also for the first time, a newspaper (the National Intelligencer) printed the Inaugural address the morning of the Inauguration. And the Marine Band played at the Inauguration for the first time.