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WASHINGTON - President Trump's first address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday will be part of an annual rite of modern presidents looking to lay out an agenda for governing and a stirring argument to support it.

While the speech has all the trappings of grand ceremony, it more often than not slides as easily out of the country's collective political consciousness as in.

A few, though, have managed to stand apart, capturing - intentionally or not - a particular moment in American public life.

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The podcast that makes sense of the most delirious stretch of the 2016 campaign.

Here are some of the most memorable from years past.

'Axis of evil'

Addressing the nation just months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush's 2002 State of the Union speech made an aggressive case for an international fight against terrorism. To clarify the threat that he said faced the United States and its allies, Mr. Bush turned to a phrase that has echoed through history.

"States like these, and their terrorist allies," he said, referring to Iran, Iraq and North Korea, "constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger."

The words drew a sharp rebuke from the three nations but helped lay the groundwork for Mr. Bush's foreign policy for years to come and specifically for the invasion of Iraq a year later - decisions that would come to define his presidency.

"We'll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side," he said. "I will not wait on events while dangers gather. I will not stand by as peril draws closer and closer."

'The era of big government is over'

Video by clintonlibrary42

President Bill Clinton, mindful of his party's stinging midterm losses, and with an eye on his own re-election, had a clear message in his State of the Union remarks in 1996.

Declaring that "the era of big government is over," he delivered a fulsome rhetorical realignment toward the political middle that came to shape much of his presidency.

"We must go forward as one America, one nation working together, to meet the challenges we face together," he said. "Self-reliance and teamwork are not opposing virtues - we must have both."

The line was Mr. Clinton's answer to congressional Republicans who had built their power in part in opposition to his liberal policy agenda, and it struck a chord.

Mr. Clinton, who had won in an Electoral College landslide in 1992, did so again the year of that speech. But his address also influenced the Democratic Party's posture for years to come - often to the frustration of its more liberal members.

The Challenger explosion

President Ronald Reagan was set to deliver his 1986 State of the Union address on Jan. 28, the day the American space shuttle Challenger exploded on live television, killing all seven people on board. As the nation mourned, the president decided to delay his address, for the first and only time in American history.

He instead delivered a brief, somber and intimate speech from the Oval Office, mourning the nation's loss and reaffirming its commitment to space exploration in spite of it.

A week later, when Mr. Reagan finally stood before Congress and the American people, he began by honoring "the valor of our seven Challenger heroes."

"I hope we are now ready to do what they would want us to do: Go forward, America, reach for the stars," he said. "We shall never forget those brave seven, but we shall go forward."

'Not true'

Video by Associated Press

An unexpected and largely marginal exchange from President Barack Obama 's 2010 address came to be remembered.

"With all due deference to separation of powers, last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections," Mr. Obama said, referring to a recent decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

The comment was a rare, face-to-face rebuke of the Supreme Court by a sitting president. It prompted an even rarer response.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who had joined the majority in the case, broke with his fellow justices observing traditional physical restraint and shook his head at the president's summary. He then appeared to mouth the words "not true."

The exchange prompted a rush of commentary and foreshadowed what would prove to be a strained relationship between the two branches during Mr. Obama's tenure.

'The so-called Watergate affair'

President Richard M. Nixon was almost 39 minutes into his less than 45-minute 1974 address before he raised the political scandal closing in on his presidency. But then he asked to offer "a personal word" about "the so-called Watergate affair."

"I believe the time has come to bring that investigation and the other investigations of this matter to an end," he said. "One year of Watergate is enough."

The Democratic members of the House and Senate leading investigations into the president's conduct looked on stoically as the president declared that he had "no intention whatever of ever walking away from the job that the people elected me to do."

The speech turned out to be Mr. Nixon's last to Congress. He resigned seven months later.

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In Joint Sessions of Congress, Capturing Moments of American Public Life

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WASHINGTON - President Trump's first address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday will be part of an annual rite of modern presidents looking to lay out an agenda for governing and a stirring argument to support it.

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President John F. Kennedy's 1963 State of the Union

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President John F. Kennedy's 1963 State of the Union

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FLASHBACK: 50 years ago, a Democratic president argued robustly for tax relief and reform rather than large-scale government spending. "I do not say that a measure for tax reduction and reform is the only way to achieve these goals.

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President Barack Obama's last State of the Union Address

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President Barack Obama's last State of the Union Address

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2016 State of the Union Address: Enhanced

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President Obama delivers his last State of the Union Address to Congress and the nation. January 12, 2016.

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In the address, the President reports on the state of the nation as he sees it, in both domestic and foreign policy terms. The message is widely covered by the news media. The chief executive's speech is as much a message to the American people, and to the world, as it is an address to Congress. In it, the President lays out the broad shape of the policies the administration has charted for the nation. The message regularly includes a number of specific legislative recommendations, along with a plea that Congress will enact them. Its presentation is soon followed by scores of bills drawn up in the executive branch and introduced in the House and Senate by various members of the President's party.
After the speech, the joint session is adjourned. Each house then separately turns to the legislative business that will come before it.

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What takes place the opening day in the House

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What takes place the opening day in the House

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The clerk of the House in the preceding term calls the chamber to order and checks the roll of representatives elect. A speaker is then chosen by the members to be. The chosen one will be their permanent presiding officer. The speaker takes the oath of office. The oath is administered by the Dean of the House. Next, the House elects its clerk, parliamentarian, sergeant at arms, chief administrative officer, and chaplain. None of these peoples are members of the House, and their elections are a formality. After the House adopts the rules that will govern its proceedings through the term. Finally, members of the 20 permanent committees of the House are appointed by a floor vote.

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Every Other January, the 435 individuals who's  been elected to the House come together at the Capitol to begin a new term. Because all 435 of its seats are up for election every two years, the House technically has no sworn members, no rules, and no organization until its opening day ceremonies are held.

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When the Senate is notified that the House of Representatives is  organized, a joint committee of the two chambers is appointed and instructed to wait upon the President and inform him that a quorum of each House is ready to receive any communication he may be pleased to make.
Within a few weeks, around late January or early February, the President delivers the annual State of the Union message to a joint session of Congress. The speech is a major political event and is based on this constitutional command.
The President has almost always presented his annual assessment in person. Members of Congress, together with the members of the Cabinet, the justices of the Supreme Court, the foreign diplomatic corps, and other dignitaries, assemble in the House chamber to hear him.

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The Senate has been organized since 1789.
Only 1/3 of the seats are up for election every two years.
2/3 is carried over from one term to the next.
As a result, the Senate does not face large
It is short and routine, newly elected and re-elected members must be sworn, and committees must be filled.

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-A joint committee is one composed of member of both house.
-Some joint committee are investigative in nature and issue periodic reports to the House and Senate.
-Joint committees conducts in studies of the federal tax system and presents its finding to the House Ways and Means Committee
-Before a bill may be sent to the president , each house must pass it in identical form

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Congress Convenes begins a new term every two years, on January 3 of every odd-numbered year. Each new term follows the general election in November.