Inauguration Watch: Inaugural balls

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They don't even know who's going to win, but the hotels are already getting ready:

The inaugural wheels are in motion at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in DC’s Woodley Park—and the new president hasn’t even been elected yet. Regardless of who is sworn in on January 20, the hotel is busy preparing for three days of jam-packed partying to usher in the 44th president of the United States.

Inaugural balls have been part of the presidential rite of passage since George Washington. He danced two cotillions and a minuet at the first ball in New York City on May 7, 1789. James Madison celebrated the first official inaugural gala in Washington in 1809. John Quincy Adams, who attended, wasn’t impressed. “The crowd was excessive, the heat oppressive, and the entertainment bad,” he said.

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