Washington has been girding itself for its quadrennial display of lofty rhetoric and lavish partying since well before Americans decided last November who would be the star of the show.

As is customary, Pennsylvania Avenue will be transformed into a riotous sea of red, white and blue as marching bands, military platoons and motorbike riders parade from Capitol Hill to the White House.

More guests will watch the swearing-in than ever before. But amid the masses will be a whole new class of inauguration attendee. Engineering specialists in rescuing people from collapsed buildings will be primed to spring into action.

Combat-ready troops from the 3rd Infantry Regiment toting M-4 assault rifles and with night-vision goggles will be on hand. And a Marine Corps rapid reaction force will pass through crowds with mobile sensors, ready to pick up the first whiff of a chemical or biological attack.

Most events in the American calendar have happened once, twice, even three times since the attacks of September 11, 2001. But not the presidential inauguration. This is a first, and the ever-cautious Secret Service, in charge of security, is leaving nothing to chance.

Anyone wanting to get within two blocks of the parade route will have to pass through one of 22 screening points.

They will have to surrender signs, placards, umbrellas and “any other items determined to be a potential safety hazard”.

It is all a far cry from what the Founding Fathers envisaged. Indeed, so concerned were they to invest powers in Congress and avoid creating an office similar to a throne that they appear to have given little thought to the occasion at all.

The oath of office, which takes a matter of seconds to recite, is the only slice of the three-day affair that is required by the Constitution.

Not even a Bible is needed, although Robert Livingston, the New York chief justice who administered the first oath, worried that George Washington’s pledge would lack legitimacy without one. An aide returned from a last-minute search having borrowed one from St John’s Masonic Lodge No 1 a few blocks away.

Washington plays little role in American culture other than being the focus of anti-government ire. The country’s great cultural events — the Oscars, the Emmys, the Super-Bowl — unfold elsewhere.

But Inauguration Day, when America makes a showy celebration of its democratic traditions, is Washington’s day and an occasion for conspicuous power-partying.

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