Akakan Umoh
As United States of America marked 250 birthday celebrations, President Donald Trump declares his country resolve “The nation that will not fail, the country that will not fall no matter how hard the enemy tries, we cannot be beaten.”
The remark formed part of Trump’s 28-minute speech at Mount Rushmore commemorating America’s 250th birthday celebrations and a fireworks display.
“The American dream still lives, and the American flag still flies more proudly than ever before over the people who will not quit,” Trump said at the end of his lengthy — albeit shorter than his usual hours-long — speech.
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As Trump spoke, across the world, Iranians buried Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at funeral ceremonies with calls for revenge on the U.S.
In perhaps the most iconic excerpt from Trump’s speech, American exceptionalism was highlighted.
Trump kicks off 4th July with symbolic salute to America’s legacy
“Americans honor excellence; we admire boldness; we respect ambition,” Trump said. “We are a nation of dreamers and believers, warriors and explorers, doers and fighters and in every human endeavor Americans see an unfinished competition.
“What is strong can be made stronger. What is fast can be made faster. What is great can be made greater than ever before. And that’s what’s happening with America.
“Show us a mountain, and we’ll just climb it. Show us an ocean and we’ll just cross it. Show us a problem and we will just solve it. Show us a task the world calls impossible and Americans will get it done.”
Trump finished with a salute to his oft-repeated “golden age of America” mantra for the 250th birthday celebration.
“Tomorrow we reach a milestone like no other and celebrate with joyful hearts and soaring spirits, because after two and a half centuries, we know that this is not an ending,” Trump’s speech concluded.
“This is only the beginning of the Golden Age of America. And together we will make America bigger, better, and stronger than ever before.
“I promise you that it’s an honor to be your president. Thank you very much and Happy Independence Day to all. God bless you all.”
The YMCA song and Trump dance followed in the Black Hills of South Dakota before a 23-minute light and fireworks display over the 60-foot carved heads of four U.S. presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln.
The Mount Rushmore fireworks were accompanied by the words of past presidents.
Four Former US Presidents speak
All four living former US presidents have shared messages as the nation marks its 250th anniversary.
President Joe Biden, the immediate past president, recalls the premise of the Declaration of Independence that all people are created equal.
“We chose that path 250 years ago but that’s where the work began, not where it ended,” he says before warning that the nation’s promise of equality for all was still a work in progress.
“We still haven’t fully lived up to those words in the Declaration. But we’ve never walked away from them, and this July 4, I hope all of us can commit to one thing: that we never will.”
The country’s first Black president, Barack Obama, has reshared excerpts of a recent speech he made at the opening of his presidential museum last month in which he talks about the nation’s founding and shared values.
“There’s more to do to fulfil the nation’s founding ideals,” he says, adding that “every generation must take up the unfinished work of the last and carry it further – protecting what’s right, fixing what’s wrong, and making our union a little more perfect.”
The 43rd president George W. Bush says that “the next 250 years require Americans to be citizens, not spectators”. Americans need to “take an active interest in the health and welfare of our country and the communities in which they live”, he adds.
His predecessor Bill Clinton used his congratulatory anniversary message to also comment on the state of US politics today.
“Today, we celebrate this milestone amid another period of deep division, renewed questions about America’s future and role in the world, and serious threats to our own institutions and to our democracy itself,” the 42nd president said.
New Sweden: The US’s long-lost ‘secret’ colony
Nicknamed “The Birthplace of America”, Philadelphia is where the Declaration of Independence was signed 250 years ago today.
However, almost no one knows that the site of this historic moment was once Swedish.
This is the story of the US’s long-lost colony, a Swedish settlement that once spread from Maryland to New Jersey and helped shape the future of the country to come.
“It started as sort of secret colony,” says Deborah-Jean Hoffman of the New Sweden Centre.
“The Swedes weren’t flag-planting like the French or the Spanish. The idea was to create an under-the-radar colony where the Dutch wouldn’t see them,” she added.
