NEW YORK CITY — As the ball drops on New Year’s Eve in Times Square, it will shine in red, white, and blue, welcoming 2026 and marking the start of nationwide celebrations for the United States’ upcoming 250th birthday.
This year’s Times Square event will include patriotic touches, such as a second confetti drop, offering a preview of the hundreds of events and programs planned across the country to commemorate the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
“I’m telling you right now, whatever you’re imagining, it’s going to be much more than that,” said America250 Chair Rosie Rios, who leads the bipartisan commission established by Congress in 2016 to oversee the semiquincentennial anniversary. “It’s going to be one for the ages, the most inspirational celebration this country and maybe the world has ever seen.”
Rios and her team collaborated with the Times Square Alliance and One Times Square, the building from which the ball is dropped, to enhance this year’s ceremonies. A second ball drop is also planned for July 3, the eve of the nation’s birthday, marking the first Times Square ball drop outside of New Year’s Eve in 120 years.
The Times Square ball tradition began in 1907, when immigrant metalworker Jacob Starr created the original 700-pound, 5-foot-diameter iron-and-wood ball with 100 light bulbs. The current Constellation Ball, unveiled last year, measures 12 feet in diameter and weighs nearly 12,000 pounds. The only years without a ball drop were 1942 and 1943, when wartime “dimouts” replaced the ceremony with a moment of silence and chimes from the base of One Times Square.
This New Year’s Eve will also mark the official launch of America Gives, a national service initiative under America250, aiming to make 2026 the largest year of volunteer hours in U.S. history.
Following New Year’s, America250 will join the Rose Parade in Pasadena, California, with a float titled “Soaring Onward Together for 250 Years”, featuring three oversized bald eagles representing the nation’s past, present, and future.
“We want to ring in this new year from sea to shining sea,” Rios said. “This has to be community-driven, grassroots. We’re going from Guam to Alaska, from Fairbanks to Philadelphia, and everything in between.”
President Donald Trump has also announced the Freedom 250 initiative to coordinate additional events for the semiquincentennial celebrations.
Rios emphasized the broad scope of planned activities from fireworks displays and statewide potlucks to student contests and citizen oral histories — as an opportunity to unite a politically divided nation. “If we can find something for everyone … having those menus of options that people can pick and choose how they want to participate, that’s how we’re going to engage 350 million Americans,” she said.
Edgardo Hernal started college at UP Diliman and received his BA in Economics from San Sebastian College, Manila, and Masters in Information Systems Management from Keller Graduate School of Management of DeVry University in Oak Brook, IL. He has 25 years of copy editing and management experience at Thomson West, a subsidiary of Thomson Reuters.
- EDGARDO HERNAL
- EDGARDO HERNAL
- EDGARDO HERNAL
- EDGARDO HERNAL
