Liberty Bell by paul_everett82

Independence Hall is a U.S. national landmark located inside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Chestnut Street between 5th and 6th Streets. Known primarily as the location where the Declaration of Independence was debated and adopted, the building was completed in 1753 as the Pennsylvania State House for the Province of Pennsylvania. It became the meeting place of the Second Continental Congress. The United States Declaration of Independence and United States Constitution were both signed at Independence Hall. The building is now part of the larger Independence National Historical Park and listed as a World Heritage Site.

Independence Hall is a red brick building, built between 1732 and 1753, and designed in the Georgian style by Edmund Woolley and Andrew Hamilton, and built by Woolley. Its building was commissioned by the Pennsylvania colonial legislature and it was initially inhabited by the colonial government of Pennsylvania as their State House. Two smaller buildings adjoin Independence Hall: to the east is Old City Hall, and to the west is Congress Hall. These three buildings are together on a city block known as Independence Square, along with Philosophical Hall, the original home of the American Philosophical Society.

Liberty Bell

The bell tower steeple of Independence Hall was the original home of the “Liberty Bell” and today it holds a “Centennial Bell” that was created for the United States Centennial Exposition in 1876. The original Liberty Bell, with the distinctive crack, is now on display across the street in the Liberty Bell Center. In 1976 Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain visited Philadelphia and presented a gift to the American people of a replica Bicentennial Bell, which was cast in the same British foundry as the original. This 1976 bell hangs in the modern bell tower located on 3rd Street near Independence Hall.

Declaration of Independence & Second Continental Congress

From 1775 to 1783, Independence Hall served as the principal meeting place of the Second Continental Congress, a body of representatives from each of the thirteen British North American colonies. The United States Declaration of Independence was approved there on July 4, 1776, and the Declaration was read aloud to the public in the area now known as Independence Square. This document unified the colonies in North America who declared themselves independent of the Kingdom of Great Britain and explained their justifications for doing so. These historic events are celebrated annually with a national holiday for U.S. Independence Day.

On June 14, 1775, delegates of the Continental Congress nominated George Washington as commander of the Continental Army in the Assembly Room of Independence Hall. The Congress appointed Benjamin Franklin to be the first Postmaster General of what would later become the United States Post Office Department on July 26.

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Independence Hall by paul_everett82

Philadelphia (pronounced /ˌfɪləˈdɛlfiə/), commonly referred to as Philly but officially and formally The City of Philadelphia, is the largest city in Pennsylvania and the sixth most populous city in the United States. It is the fifth largest metropolitan area by population in the United States, the nation’s fourth largest consumer media market as ranked by the Nielsen Media Research, and the 49th most populous city in the world. It is the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. A popular nickname for Philadelphia is The City of Brotherly Love (from Greek: Φιλαδέλφεια, [pʰi.la.ˈdel.pʰeː.a], Modern Greek: [fi.la'ðɛl.fi.a], “brotherly love” from philos, “love”, and adelphos “brother”). The city is recognized as a strong candidate global city.

In 2005, the population of the city proper was estimated to be over 1.4 million while the Greater Philadelphia metropolitan area, with a population of 5.8 million, was the fifth-largest in the United States. A commercial, educational, and cultural center, the city was once the second-largest in the British Empire (after London) and the social and geographical center of the original 13 American colonies. During the 18th century, it eclipsed New York City in political and social importance, with Benjamin Franklin taking a large role in Philadelphia’s early rise to prominence. It was in this city that some of the ideas, and subsequent actions, gave birth to the American Revolution and American independence, making Philadelphia a centerpiece of early American history. It was the most populous city of the young United States and served as the the nation’s first capital in 1774.

History

Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Philadelphia area was the location of the Lenape (Delaware) Indian village Shackamaxon. Europeans arrived in the Delaware Valley in the early 1600s, with the first settlements founded by the Dutch, British and Swedish.

The Swedes sought to expand their influence by creating an agricultural (tobacco) and fur-trading colony to bypass French and British merchants. The New Sweden Company was chartered and included Swedish, Dutch and German stockholders. The first Swedish expion to North America embarked from the port of Gothenburg in late 1637. It was organized and overseen by Clas Fleming, a Swedish admiral from Finland. Part of this colony, called New Sweden or Nya Sverige eventually included land on the west side of the Delaware River from just below the Schuylkill River: in other words, today’s Philadelphia, southeast Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland.

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