First Appearance in a Newspaper

After Congress approved the Declaration on July 4, 1776, their official printer John Dunlap immediately set it into type as a broadside and printed copies overnight. Two days later, on July 6, The Pennsylvania Evening Post, printed by Benjamin Towne in Philadelphia, was the first newspaper to include the complete text. By July 18, twenty-four colonial printers had included the full text of the Declaration of Independence in their local newspapers.