By the Numbers: America’s big news
Word of the Declaration of Independence spread fast, by Colonial standards
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37 days
The time it took for word to reach London that the American colonists had signed the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776. The news of the American rebellion merited just a 16-word report in an Aug. 10 edition of The London Gazette. By the time the mail ship Mercury reached England with word of the Declaration, printers across the Colonies had already published it in dozens of American cities.
6,000+
The number of letters, including a dispatch from British Gen. William Howe reporting on the events of July 4, carried by the Mercury during its mail run.
200
The estimated number of copies of the Declaration of Independence made by Philadelphia printer John Dunlap.
26
The number of Dunlap Broadsides—poster-sized copies of the Declaration—still known to be in existence today.
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