White House Facebook Timeline Goes Back to the Beginning

The White House has taken the Facebook timeline concept to a whole new level by adding images stretching all the way back to George Washington's 1789 inauguration.

The timeline includes light moments and more somber ones.

It also points out some odd American preoccupations.

There are large gaps of course. Much of the timeline's early history is just sketches of one presidential inauguration after another. Some of the nation's darker hours -- notably the Great Depression and World War II -- are absent from the timeline, but it may not yet be complete.

Our favorite moment: when the sketch of Grover Cleveland's first inaugural in 1885 is immediately followed by a photograph of his successor Benjamin Harrison's rainy 1889 inaugural. Could anyone guess where that innovation would take us?