Independence Hall

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Independence Hall, officially known as the Pennsylvania State House, is a historic building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Built between 1732 and 1753, it was designed in the Georgian style of architecture by Edmund Wooley and Andrew Hamilton. It was commissioned by the Pennsylvania colonial legislature and is located on Chestnut Street between 5th and 6th Streets.

Originally built and inhabited by the colonial government of Pennsylvania (as reflected in its original name, Pennsylvania State House), it was the principal meeting place of the Second Continental Congress from 1775 to 1783, the site of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 and of the drafting and signing of the United States Constitution in 1787. During the hot summer of 1787, the windows were kept shut so that others could not hear the discussions going on inside. Its belltower was the original home of the Liberty Bell, and today holds a bell created for the United States Centennial Exposition in 1876.

Independence Hall is pictured on the back of the U.S. $100 bill, as well as the bicentennial Kennedy half dollar. It is now part of Independence National Historical Park, administered by the National Park Service, and is listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO (joining only three other U.S. man-made monuments still in use, the others being the Statue of Liberty, Pueblo de Taos, and the combined site of the University of Virginia and Monticello).

Because of its symbolic history, Independence Hall has been used in more recent times as the staging ground for protests[link] in support of democratic movements.

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World Heritage Sites in the United States of America