These Historic Military Parades Turned Heads

Whether a victory march, a commemoration of past conflict or a showy flexing of military muscle, the tradition of soldiers publicly parading with their weapons goes back for millennia. Long designed to stir flag-waving fervor and impress enemies, such lockstep processions have been a favorite vehicle for leaders throughout history.

After defeating the Insubrian Gauls and capturing Mediolanum (present-day Milan), Roman military commander Marcus Claudius Marcellus celebrated his triumph—and the significant expansion of Roman territory—with a parade. Having killed the Insubrian leader in a duel, he returned with the honor of “supreme spoils,” including the vanquished commander’s armor and weapons.

Napoleon Bonaparte’s military parade and ceremony at the Boulogne-sur-Mer on August 16, 1804, played a significant role in the French leader’s plan to invade Britain. He assembled his “grand army” at the site to prepare for battle and make a show of their strength. But he also spent the day bestowing medals on some 2,000 soldiers and civilians. The Column of the Grande Armée, still standing near Boulogne, honors the event, history’s largest-ever Legion of Honour Cross presentation.

Starting on May 23, 1865, more than 145,000 victorious U.S. Army Civil War soldiers paraded before President Andrew Johnson and other dignitaries in the Grand Review of the Armies in Washington, D.C. for two days, marking their final march before disbanding. “Such a exhibition will probably never again be seen on this Continent,” Ohio’s Xenia Sentinel reported May 26, 1865. “It was a perfect ovation to our returning heroes, such as the old Romans gave their victorious legions as they marched home from glorious conquest.”

Mounted soldiers from the U.S. 1st Army take part in the September 10, 1919 Victory Parade in New York City. The event welcomed home General John J. Pershing and 25,000 soldiers from the American Expeditionary Force's 1st Division, marking their return after World War I . More than 2 million Americans served by the war's end, with some 53,000 battle deaths in less than six months of fighting. More than 60,000 U.S. soldiers additionally perished from accidents or disease.

More than a year before Hitler invaded Poland and more than three years before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt observed Army Day on April 6, 1938, marking the 21st anniversary of America's entry into World War I. The Washington, D.C. parade featured virtually every service branch.

Between 1933 and 1938, the annual Nuremberg rallies featured hundreds of thousands of Nazis, including military displays, torchlight processions and speeches by Adolf Hitler and other leaders. The events served as powerful propaganda spectacles to project German strength and Nazi control.

Some five months after revelers jubilantly poured into the streets to celebrate V-J (Victory in Japan) Day, more than 12,000 paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division passed through New York City's Washington Square Arch during the World War II Victory Parade, the grandest military spectacle in the city since the end of World War I. The division, which parachuted into enemy territory to spearhead invasions four times (including at Normandy), marched four and a half miles up Fifth Avenue in homage to all the unsung GIs who fought and died in the conflict.

In the V.I.P. grandstand, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, left front, and Vice President Richard Nixon, right front, are shown reviewing Eisenhower’s second inaugural parade on January 21, 1957. Approximately 750,000 people attended the 90-minute event—themed "Liberty and Strength Through Consent of the Governed”—that covered 3 miles and featured 17,000 marchers, including nearly 12,000 members of the military.

President John F. Kennedy is shown applauding during his inaugural parade along Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., on January 20, 1961, as the U.S. Navy’s new McDonnell F-4H Phantom II fighter jet passes by. A storm the day before dumped eight inches of snow on the city, causing vehicles to be stranded and National Airport to close due to a whiteout. The Washington Post reports that Kennedy’s inauguration still stands as the one that historically had the “most snow on the ground,” but the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers teamed with D.C. workers to clear the parade route in time for the festivities.

During a Victory Day parade marking the 20th anniversary of the Allied victory over Germany in World War II, the Soviet's display of weaponry included this intercontinental missile, shown crossing Moscow's Red Square. The first such Victory Day parade took place in 1945, but Soviet leader Joseph Stalin discontinued the event for political reasons, to minimize the lionization of any WWII generals who might pose a challenge to his authority. After 1965, the parades resumed intermittently, becoming increasingly colossal patriotic spectacles. After 2008, they resumed annually.

Sailors are shown celebrating on the wings of a Navy A-7 Corsair jet being pulled down Broadway in New York City on June 10, 1991, during the Operation Welcome Home ticker tape parade to honor returning Gulf War troops. Approximately 4 million people cheered on 24,000 Desert Storm veterans, creating a “paper blizzard, so thick that sanitation crews had to shove it out of the way with brooms as various military vehicles crawled up Broadway,” The Washington Post reported.

Tank-based rocket launchers pass through Kim Il-Sung Square in the capital of Pyongyang during a military parade marking the 60th anniversary of the end of fighting in the Korean War. The massive event featured synchronized marching and ballistic missiles, spotlighted leader Kim Jong Un and issued a warning to foreign neighbors, according to The Washington Post.

In one of the largest parades in history, China held a grand military procession in Beijing to mark the 70th anniversary of its victory over Japan in World War II, which it referred to as “the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War.” The event, attended by over 30 foreign officials, highlighted China's military might, featuring 12,000 soldiers and displays of tanks, missiles, aircraft and other military equipment, the BBC reported.

In Paris, a grand military parade marked Bastille Day—and the 100th anniversary of America’s entry into World War I—with horses, airplanes, helicopters and thousands of troops marching down the Champs-Élysées. With foreign dignitaries in attendance, the display highlighted both the French military and American soldiers and aircraft, CNN reported.