{"id":286726,"date":"2026-07-04T16:25:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T16:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/286726\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T16:25:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T16:25:14","slug":"4th-of-july-celebrations-for-americas-250th-birthday-across-usa-live-updates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/286726\/","title":{"rendered":"4th of July celebrations for America\u2019s 250th birthday across USA: Live updates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Italian tall ship Amerigo Vespucci,<\/a> named after the famed explorer who first named the American continent, is part of the patriotic nautical procession.<\/p>\n

\"\"Italian military training ship Amerigo Vespucci navigates near the Statue of Liberty. REUTERS<\/p>\n

The ship was first built in the 1930s by Benito Mussolini as a training ship and it survived WWII.<\/p>\n

David Winkler, a historian from the National Maritime Historical Society<\/a>, told The Post that the vessel is known for their culinary expertise.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Amerigo Vespucci is just the creme de la creme!” Winkler said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was on the Suribachi, about 1982, we actually pulled into a Port in Sicily, <\/a>and pulled alongside the Amerigo Vespucci, and they invited us over for dinner, and, oh, my goodness.<\/p>\n

\"\"The ship was first built in the 1930s by Benito Mussolini as a training ship and it survived WWII. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the wine, the spaghetti, the different types of fishes, the Chianti, and desserts.”<\/p>\n

Winkler said the captain said, \u201c’well, we need to have them over for dinner.’ And we’re all looking at each other, like, ‘what are we’re gonna serve these guys?’\u201d<\/p>\n

In the US Navy,<\/a> you can’t serve alcohol, WInkler said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the chefs said, ‘we’ll have to do a Bake Alaska.’ All we could get our hands on was a bottle of grain alcohol, and we said, ‘OK, let\u2019s soak the thing with the grain alcohol, and then we’ll light it off,’\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\"\"A crew member climbs along the stern of the Italian ship Amerigo Vespucci near Sandy Hook, New Jersey. REUTERS<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I was walking towards the wardrobe when they lit this thing off,” he joked, “and I just saw a flash, and, let’s just say, it did not go well for the United States that night.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Italian tall ship Amerigo Vespucci, named after the famed explorer who first named the American continent, is part…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[7987,33453,153,40550,5309,77785,9,24,55,54,56,34974,58,8093],"class_list":["post-286726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-america","tag-america-250","tag-donald-trump","tag-fourth-of-july","tag-live-blogs","tag-macys-fourth-of-july-fireworks-show","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-sail4th-250","tag-us-news","tag-washington-dc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}