This Day In History: The First Reading of the Declaration of Independence

On this day in history on July 8th, 1776, the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence occurred as Colonel John Nixon read it to an assembled crowd in Philadelphia. It was also read again that evening before the militia on the Commons as well as in Easton, Pennsylvania, and Trenton, New Jersey. Typically in towns and cities across the nation accompanying the oral declarations were loud shouts, huzzas, firings of muskets, and the tearing down of the British emblems.