how many were there at the National Mall?
The huge throng that flocked to Washington was more a part of history than just being present at the inauguration of our first African-American president. They were also a part of the largest crowd ever in our national capital, which has hosted many monster gatherings. But how large was the crowd? The Associated Press offered the open-ended count of “more than a million” which the AP says is “based on crowd photographs and comparisons with past events.” But that’s too vague to formally dethrone the previous record of 1.2 million for Lyndon Johnson’s inaugural, although in truth LBJ was no stranger to exaggeration when it came to his place in the scheme of things. The District of Columbia says 1.8 million but admits that figure is nothing more than an informed guess. The D.C. police have a figure but won’t release it. An Arizona State University professor, who specializes in estimating crowds, put the count at 800,000. There is a government agency that is skilled in crowd counting, has
