(CNN) -- While President-elect Barack Obama will certainly be making history when he takes the oath of office on January 20, he'll also be repeating it -- by placing his hand on the same Bible that Abraham Lincoln used during the inauguration of 1861. The 1861 Lincoln Inaugural Bible against the backdrop of the Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress. The Constitution does not require presidents to be sworn in on a Bible, though almost every chief executive since George Washington has chosen to do so. Presidents have differed greatly, however, on the question of which passage the Bible should be opened to during the swearing-in ceremony.
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Barack Obama will be sworn in using same Bible as Abraham Lincoln
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Lincoln's Bible was turned to a random page at his 1861 inauguration
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Many presidents choose to open Bible to a specific verse
The same thing was done 72 years later when @placeholder was sworn in.