US military parade has global counterparts in democracies, monarchies and totalitarian regimes

The military parade to mark the Army's 250th anniversary and its convergence with President Donald Trump's 79th birthday are combining to create a peacetime outlier in U.S. history. Yet it still reflects global traditions that serve a range of political and cultural purposes.

Variations on the theme have surfaced among longtime NATO allies in Europe, one-party and authoritarian states and history's darkest regimes.

The oldest democratic ally of the U.S. holds a military parade each July 14 to commemorate one of the seminal moments of the French Revolution. It inspired — or at least stoked — Trump's idea for a Washington version.

On July 14, 1789, French insurgents stormed the Bastille, which housed prisoners of Louis XVI’s government. Revolutionaries commenced a Fête de la Fédération as a day of national unity and pride the following year, even with the First French Republic still more than two years from being established.

The Bastille Day parade has rolled annually since 1880. Now, it proceeds down an iconic Parisian route, the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. It passes the Arc de Triomphe — a memorial with tributes to the French Revolution, Napoleonic Wars and World War I — and eventually in front of the French president, government ministers and invited foreign guests.

Trump attended in 2017, early in his first presidency, as U.S. troops marched as guests. The spectacle left him openly envious.

“It was one of the greatest parades I’ve ever seen,” Trump told French President Emanuel Macron. “It was military might, and I think a tremendous thing for France and for the spirit of France. We’re going to have to try and top it.”

In the United Kingdom, King Charles III serves as ceremonial (though not practical) head of U.K. armed forces. Unlike in France and the U.S., where elected presidents wear civilian dress even at military events, Charles dons elaborate dress uniforms — medals, sash, sword, sometimes even a bearskin hat and chin strap.

He does it most famously at Trooping the Colour, a parade and troop inspection to mark the British monarch’s official birthday, regardless of their actual birthdate. (The U.S. Army has said it has no specific plans to recognize Trump’s birthday on Saturday.)

In 2023, Charles’ first full year as king, he rode on horseback to inspect 1,400 representatives of the most prestigious U.K. regiments. His mother, Queen Elizabeth II, used a carriage over the last three decades of her 70-year reign.

The British trace Trooping the Colour back to King Charles II, who reigned from 1660-1685. It became an annual event under King George III, described in the American colonists’ Declaration of Independence as a figure of “absolute Despotism (and) Tyranny.”

Grandiose military pomp is common under modern authoritarians, especially those who have seized power via coups. It sometimes serves as a show of force meant to ward off would-be challengers — and to seek legitimacy and respect from other countries.

Cuba’s Fidel Castro, who wore military garb routinely, held parades to commemorate the revolution he led on Dec. 2, 1959. In 2017, then-President Raúl Castro refashioned the event into a Fidel tribute shortly after his brother’s death. Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, known as “Comandante Chávez,” presided over frequent parades until his 2013 death. His successor, Nicolás Maduro, has worn military dress at similar events.

North Korean dictator Kim Jung Un, who famously bonded with Trump in a 2018 summit, used a 2023 military parade to show off his daughter and potential successor, along with pieces of his isolated country's nuclear arsenal. The event in Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung Square — named for Kim's grandfather — marked the North Korean Army's 75th birthday. Kim watched from a viewing stand as missiles other weaponry moved by and goose-stepping soldiers marched past him chanting, “Defend with your life, Paektu Bloodline” — referring to the Kim family's biological ancestry.

In China, Beijing's one-party government stages its National Day Parade every 10 years to project civic unity and military might. The most recent events, held in 2009 and 2019, involved trucks carrying nuclear missiles designed to evade U.S. defenses, as well as other weaponry.

Legions of troops, along with those hard assets, streamed past President Xi Jinping and other leaders gathered in Tiananmen Square in 2019 as spectators waved Chinese flags and fighter jets flew above.

Earlier this spring, Xi joined Russian President Vladimir Putin — another strongman leader Trump has occasionally praised — in Moscow's Red Square for the annual “Victory Day” parade. The May 9 event commemorates the Soviet Union's role in defeating Nazi Germany in World War II — a global conflict in which China and the Soviet Union, despite not being democracies, joined the Allied Powers in fighting the Axis Powers led by Germany and Japan.

Large civic-military displays were, of course, a feature in Nazi Germany and fascist Italy before and during World War II. Chilling footage of such events lives on as a reminder of the dangers of authoritarian extremism.

Among those frequent occasions: a parade capping Germany’s multiday observance of Adolf Hitler’s 50th birthday in 1939. (Some far-right extremists in Europe still mark the anniversary of Hitler's birth.) The four-hour march through Berlin on April 20, 1939, included more than 40,000 personnel across the Army, Navy, Luftwaffe (Air Force) and Schutzstaffel (commonly known as the “SS.”) Hundreds of thousands of spectators lined the streets. The Führer’s invited guests numbered 20,000.

On a street-level platform, Hitler was front and center. Alone.

FILE - Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez salutes as he arrives to preside over a civilian-military parade part of Venezuela's 200th independence anniversary celebrations in Caracas, April 19, 2010.(AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File)

FILE - Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro, from left, Operational Strategic Commander Gen. Vladimir Padrino Lopez, Bolivia's President Evo Morales and Cuba's President Raul Castro applaud during a military parade commemorating the one year anniversary of the death of Venezuela's former President Hugo Chavez in Caracas, Venezuela, March 5, 2014. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano, File)

FILE - French President Emmanuel Macron, right, and U.S. President Donald Trump attend the traditional Bastille Day military parade July 14, 2017, on the Champs Elysees, in Paris. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, File)

FILE - U.S troops march down the Champs Elysees during the Bastille Day parade in Paris, July 14, 2017. (AP/Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)

FILE - Cuban soldiers march during a military parade along the Revolution Square in Havana, Cuba, Dec. 2, 2006. (AP Photo/ Javier Galeano, File)

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Alisha Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov defended their pairs title at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships on Friday night, and now have a nervous wait to see whether her citizenship will be approved in time to compete at the Milan Cortina Olympics.

While he is a U.S. citizen, born in Wisconsin and raised in Texas, the 26-year-old Efimova was born in Finland and has competed for Germany and Russia along with her native country. Only citizens of the country they represent are eligible for the Olympics, though, and while Mitrofanov and Efimova are married and she has a green card, she has not received an American passport yet.

The Skating Club of Boston, where the couple trains, and U.S. Figure Skating have been working to get the typical three-year waiting period for citizenship expedited. But time is running out before Sunday’s deadline to announce the Olympic team.

Despite a couple of errors on their jumps, including a scary moment when Mitrofanov was nearly clipped by Efimova's skate, the pair finished with 207.71 points, easily outdistancing Ellie Kam and Danny O'Shea for their second straight national championship.

Kam and O'Shea finished with 197.12 points and Katie McBeath and Daniil Parkman were third with 187.45.

The women’s title will be decided Friday night in what amounts to a showdown between two-time defending champion Amber Glenn and reigning world champ Alysa Liu, who finished second at nationals a year ago by the slimmest of margins.

Glenn led after breaking the record for a women’s short program at the U.S. championships with 83.05 points, while Liu was second with 81.11 points. Isabeau Levito was third, Sarah Everhardt fourth and Bradie Tennell fifth.

The Americans have qualified the maximum three women’s spots on the Olympic team.

They only have two spots in pairs.

Efimova and Mitrofanov would get one, should her citizenship get approved at the last minute. Kam and O'Shea are near locks to make their first Olympic team, while McBeath and Parkman are unable to go because he likewise does not have U.S. citizenship.

That could leave U.S. Figure Skating to make a judgment call on the second pairs team it sends to the Milan Cortina Games.

Emily Chan and Spencer Howe rallied from eighth after a difficult short program to finish fourth with 186.52 points Friday night, while the up-and-coming team of Audrey Shin and Balazs Nagy were less than two points behind in fifth place.

Yet ahead of them all were Efimova and Mitrofanov, the clear-cut best of American pairs skating.

Their free skate, set to “Where Do I Begin?” from the 1970 Arthur Hiller romantic drama “Love Story," was intended to be a tribute to two-time Olympic champions Katia Gordeeva and Sergey Grinkov, who was just 28 when he died of a heart attack in 1995.

Efimova and Mitrofanov opened with a beautiful triple twist, but then a sequence went awry after their triple salchow when he fell during a double axel, and Efimova nearly wiped his forehead with her skate blade. She also struggled on their side-by-side triple toe loops later in the program, but a strong finishing sequence left no doubt that they would repeat as champions.

Kam and O'Shea, the 2024 national champions, gave it their best shot at getting back to the top of the podium.

But they likewise had just enough mistakes during their free skate, set to music from the Eurythmics, The Beatles and Tears for Fear, to keep them in second place. Kam put her hand down on their triple toe loops, she made a mistake after their triple salchow during an intended sequence of jumps, and she later fell on their throw triple lutz.

Still, the 21-year-old Kam and the 34-year-old Shea did enough to likely lock up a spot for the Winter Games.

AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

Katie McBeath and Daniil Parkman compete during the pairs free skating competition at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Ellie Kam and Danny O'Shea compete during the pairs free skating competition at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Ellie Kam and Danny O'Shea compete during the pairs free skating competition at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov compete during the pairs free skating competition at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Misha Mitrofanov lifts his partner Alisa Efimova after they took first place to win the pairs free skating competition at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov compete during the pairs free skating competition at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)