WASHINGTON — The United States is marking its 250th birthday on Saturday with a scale of celebration that no previous Independence Day has come close to matching, combining record-setting fireworks, an international fleet review, Times Square ball drops spanning every American time zone and hundreds of community events from Bristol, Rhode Island, to Hawaii. Here is everything you need to know about this extraordinary national milestone.

1. This is the most consequential July 4 since the Bicentennial in 1976. The 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, known formally as the Semiquincentennial or America250, marks a milestone that arrives only once in a nation's history. Planning for the celebrations began a decade ago through a congressional, bipartisan commission. President Donald Trump also established a parallel public-private initiative called Freedom 250 to coordinate federal, state and private sector involvement. Trump himself kicked off the anniversary weekend Friday night at Mount Rushmore, delivering remarks beneath the carved faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt before a fireworks display lit up the South Dakota sky.

"With a single sheet of parchment and 56 signatures, America began the greatest political journey in human history," Trump said.

2. The Times Square ball is dropping eight times, not once. In a first for the iconic New York tradition, the Times Square ball descended multiple times to mark the arrival of Independence Day across every American time zone, beginning with Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands at 10 a.m. Friday and ending in American Samoa........

© International Business Times