As this holiday approaches, here are  some little known facts you can share with family and friends. Have a safe holiday celebrating our independence!

The Declaration of Independence wasn’t signed on July 4, 1776. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration on July 4^th, but most delegates didn’t sign the document until August 2, 1776. July 2nd, was the actual day the Continental Congress voted for independence from British Rule!

There is more than one copy. Hundreds were printed, known as the “Dunlap Broadsides” after the owner of the shop that printed them. They were dispatched to the 13 colonies to be read aloud, for people who could not read. Only 26 are known to have survived. Two copies have been found in the last 25 years. In 1989, a Philadelphia man found an original Dunlap Broadside hidden in the back of a picture frame he bought at a flea market for $4. A 26^th Dunlap Broadside emerged from the British National Archives in 2009, hidden for centuries in a box of papers captured from the American colonists during the Revolutionary War.

Jefferson and Adams died on the same day, July 4^th, 50 years after the Declaration’s adoption, in 1826. Adams assisted Jefferson in writing the declaration and also played a part in persuading the Congress to declare independence.

It started a riot. When a Dunlap Broadside was read by George Washington in New York City on July 9, 1776, the words so inspired the listeners that they tore down a statue of King George III, which was later melted down into musket balls for the American Army, according to History Channel.