Barack Hussein Obama officially began his second term as the 44th president Sunday, setting the stage for him to lay out his vision in an inaugural address on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr., Day.
More than half a million people are expected to watch from the Mall, four years and a day after the nation's first African-American president was sworn in the first time.
President Obama, joined on Sunday by a dozen family members, recited the 35-word oath of office administered by Chief Justice John Roberts in the Blue Room of the White House. It was an intimate and businesslike 30 seconds of history. Obama's hand rested on a Bible that the first lady's father, Fraser Robinson, had given to his mother, LaVaughn Delores Robinson, on Mother's Day 1958.