Joe Biden’s inauguration fell on the 60th anniversary of perhaps the most famous presidential inauguration — that of John F. Kennedy on Jan. 20, 1961. With political and cultural divisions roiling the nation, one can be forgiven for nostalgically looking back at the former event. Kennedy’s inauguration took place during a lost era of unity and domestic tranquility.

Those amassed in the nation’s capital to witness Kennedy take the oath of office had just been subjected to a brutal snowstorm, but there was no way they could have anticipated the storms that would strike America’s social fabric over the next decade, much less the next six decades.