In Congress, July 4, 1776. A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress Assembled

This is one of only 23 known copies of John Dunlap's first printing of the Declaration of Independence, the most important single printed document in American history. On 4 July 1776, the Committee of Five that had drafted the Declaration of Independence, which included Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston, brought their congressionally approved text to the Philadelphia printing shop of Dunlap. Dunlap printed a small number of copies of the Declaration on the night of 4 July. On 5 July, the first copies were distributed. It is this printed Declaration that conveyed the news of the birth of a new nation and fixed the Fourth of July as our national anniversary.