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Both of the future presidents that signed the Declaration, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, died on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the ratification of the Declaration of Independence.
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Once the Declaration was finished on July 4, about 200 copies were made by Dunlap Broadside printing. Only 26 are still known to exist. In 2000, one of those copies sold for $8.1 million.
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The Declaration displayed in the National Archives is not the draft approved by Congress on July 4, but the official copy signed on August 2.
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One of the writers of the Declaration, Robert Livingston, refused to sign it. He believed that it was too soon to declare independence.
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After a public reading of the Declaration in New York, the excited colonists tore down a statue of King George III that was in the town square. The statue was then melted down and used to make more than 42,000 musket balls. __________________________________________________
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The Declaration was stored in Fort Knox for three years after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. |
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Benjamin Franklin was the oldest signer at age 70; the youngest was 26-year-old Edward Rutledge.