The first inauguration of George Washington as the first president of the United States was held on Thursday, April 30, 1789, on the balcony of Federal Hall in New York City, New York. The inauguration was held nearly two months after the beginning of the first four-year term of George Washington as president. Chancellor of New York Robert Livingston administered the presidential oath of office. With this inauguration, the executive branch of the United States government officially began operations under the new frame of government established by the 1787 Constitution. The inauguration of John Adams as vice president was on April 21, 1789, when he assumed his duties as presiding officer of the United States Senate; this also remains the only scheduled inauguration to take place on a day that was neither January nor March.

Federal Hall is a memorial and historic site at 26 Wall Street in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City. The current Greek Revival–style building, completed in 1842 as the Custom House, is owned by the United States federal government and operated by the National Park Service as a national memorial called the Federal Hall National Memorial. The memorial is named for an earlier Federal style building on this same site, completed in 1703 as City Hall, which the government of the newly independent United States used as its capital building and called Federal Hall during the 1780s.