US celebrates 227th birthday

Massive firework displays in US cities rounded off America’s July 4 celebrations – the nation’s 227th birthday.

A new museum for the Constitution in its birthplace was opened, marking the centennial of aviation and welcoming troops returning home from Iraq.

In Dayton, Ohio, President George Bush climbed a flag-draped stage flanked by military jets to praise the work of US troops and celebrate the 100th anniversary of flight in the home town of the Wright brothers.

“Today and every day, the people of this land are grateful for their freedom, and we are proud to call ourselves citizens of the United States of America,” Bush told a cheering crowd on at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

At Forbes Field in Topeka, Kansas, parents, spouses and children of 135 National Guard soldiers greeted their loved for the first time since the soldiers left for Iraq five months ago.

In Dearborn, Michigan, home to one of the nation’s largest Arab-American communities, turmoil overseas heightened the importance of this Independence Day.

“Independence,” said Shane Safawi, who emigrated from Lebanon in 1988 and became a US citizen about five years later. “The word itself means a lot. You are free. The whole country is free. It is a moment that you celebrate.”

Chicago got a jump on the holiday a day early, shooting off its fireworks extravaganza on Thursday night to the 1812 Overture before a crowd of 1.15 million people at the edge of Lake Michigan.

In the nation’s birthplace, Philadelphia leaders honoured the first female Supreme Court justice, Sandra Day O’Connor, with the city’s Liberty Medal for embodying the founding principles of the nation.

O’Connor, along with jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, helped open the new, $185m (€161m) National Constitution Centre, which houses the first public printings of the Constitution and an inkwell Abraham Lincoln used in signing the Emancipation Proclamation.

The duty to uphold the Constitution – drafted in 1787 – was shared by citizens, politicians, presidents and judges alike, O’Connor said.

“By spreading the responsibility to uphold the Constitution among so many, the framers enlisted a legion of defenders for their new charter,” she said.

But O’Connor and the other celebrities got a scare during the ceremony’s finale when a heavy frame crashed on to the stage as they pulled ribbons to reveal a mural. The museum’s president was hit by the frame and treated at a hospital.

In Webster Groves, Missouri, outside St Louis, a six-year-old girl was killed after she fell from a parade float and was run over by the vehicle, authorities said.

In Iraq, American soldiers held barbecues along with their Kurdish allies, who also mark July 4 as the anniversary of their first government. In Baghdad, troops joined actor Arnold Schwarzenegger in watching his latest film, Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines.

Across the Atlantic, French hotels treated American tourists to champagne, fruit baskets and special discounts – an Independence Day gesture of healing after a bitter, French-US diplomatic dispute over the war in Iraq.

Jean-Marc Janaillac, president of Paris’ tourism office, said fewer Americans had been visiting the French capital this year, and that he feared “part of this decline is based on the fact that some Americans are afraid of not being welcome in France”.

“We wanted to tell them very simply ... that they are welcome in Paris, indeed,” he told Associated Press Television News.

In Italy, a band played American tunes as guests – among them top Vatican cardinals – munched hot dogs and hamburgers at the US ambassador’s villa in Vatican City. Two men on horseback provided a Wild West theme.

In Geneva, Switzerland, 35,000 guests were expected at the American International Club of Geneva holiday event.