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The view from the sailing ships was equally impressive. After sailing from Newport, R.I., to the Hudson aboard the Spanish topsail schooner Juan Sebastian de Elcano, TIME Senior Editor Timothy Foote reported: "Westward, toward Staten Island, and north toward the towers of Manhattan, the boats were as thick as a Hollywood director's dream of Dunkirk. Blimps and helicopters cavorted around the towers of the World Trade Center like tropical fish in a tank. Thunderous salutes and puffs of smoke exploded from Navy vessels.
Roars for More. "Off Spuyten Duyvil the tall ships moved in toward the eastern shore, waiting to come about. Heading back, we got our first look at the other sailboats behind us in the parade: Gypsy Moth V; the schooner Sir Winston Churchill with its all-women crew; a full-scale model of the Santa Maria; a Viking ship powered by an outboard Evinrude."
Aboard the Forrestal were more than 3,000 guests, including Monaco's Prince Rainier and Princess Grace, Norway's Crown Prince Harald and Princess Sonja, 70 foreign ambassadors, 50 members of Congress, most of the U.S. Cabinet and the President.
In Boston the ceremonies began with an otherworldly touch. Light from the star epsilon Lyrae, 200 light-years from earth, was converted into electrical current at the University of Hawaii's observatory, transmitted to Boston's Old North Church and used to light two replicas of the lanterns that signaled the midnight ride of Paul Revere in 1775. That night some 400,000 people, the biggest throng in the city's history, crowded onto the narrow Esplanade along the Charles River to hear a Boston Pops concert. As the orchestra reached the finale of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, 105-mm. howitzers boomed, church bells pealed, fireworks showered the skies with color, and the crowds roared for more.
In Philadelphia at least 1 million people showed up for a re-enactment of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. At 2 p.m. the cracked Liberty Bell was struck softly with a rubber mallet. At the same time, Ford tolled the ship's bell aboard the Forrestal 13 times—once for each of the original colonies—and bells began pealing simultaneously all across the country in a joyous national chorus.
So it went in nearly every city and town in the country. There were massive parades, including a 10.8-mile-long spectacular in Los Angeles and a two-hour-long parade on Atlanta's Peachtree Street, in which the winning float was decorated with 2,000 roses, 2,500 daisies, 2,750 carnations, 5,000 gypsophila (babies'-breath), 10,000 ferns, 10,000 jade palms, 18,000 chrysanthemums and a lesser number of orchids, asters and sweetheart roses.
Upbeat Spirits. In Miami's "Little Havana," 20,000 people turned out for one of the biggest block parties ever staged. New Orleans' Jackson Square overflowed with throngs for the unveiling of a statue of the late Louis ("Satch-mo") Armstrong, who would have been 76 in the Bicentennial year. Oaths of allegiance in mass naturalization ceremonies were administered to 7,141 new citizens in Miami, 1,776 in Chicago, 1,100 in Detroit.