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Originally Posted by go-bots
things like "in God we trust" on our money and swearing oaths of office on the Holy Bible, etc... I believe all that started in the 1950's.
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In God We Trust
From Treasury Department records it appears that the first suggestion that God be recognized on U.S. coinage can be traced to a letter addressed to the Secretary of Treasury from a minister in 1861. An Act of Congress, approved on April 11, 1864, authorized the coinage of two-cent coins upon which the motto first appeared.
Swear on the Bible
The Constitution does not require the new president to place his hand on a Bible while repeating the oath. The tradition has been kept since George Washington — with the exception of Theodore Roosevelt, who did not use a Bible when he took the oath after President William McKinley's 1901 assassination.