Celebrating America’s 250th Anniversary Across the Country

In recent years, Americans have come together to celebrate the Fourth of July despite the deep political divisions roiling the nation’s politics.

This week, as the country geared up to toast its 250th anniversary on Saturday, those divisions remained, of course. But many Americans had something more immediate to contend with: a dangerous heat wave that blanketed much of the country in broiling temperatures.

Events of all kinds, official and otherwise, have been disrupted as a result. In Philadelphia, where the Declaration of Independence was signed, organizers canceled a parade on Friday that was shaping up to be one of the biggest in the city’s history, amid expectations of triple-digit heat.

And yet despite the weather, despite the politics and the division, the party has gone on (as it has, in some places, all year), with soapbox derby races, cattle drives, fife-and-drum corps performances and fireworks galore, as Americans in small towns and big cities across the country have celebrated the semiquincentennial in their own ways.

Here’s what the party has looked like.

July 3