The Liberty Bell is the Philadelphia bell that is a famous symbol of American independence in the story of America's 250th anniversary.
The bell was commissioned by Pennsylvania's Provincial Assembly in 1751 for the Pennsylvania State House, now called Independence Hall. It arrived from London in 1752 and cracked during an early test. Local founders John Pass and John Stow recast it twice in Philadelphia; their names and the date 1753 appear on the bell.
Its inscription comes from Leviticus 25:10: “Proclaim LIBERTY Throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants Thereof.” The wording helped give the bell its later symbolic power, although it was not originally called the Liberty Bell. That name became popular in the 19th century, especially among abolitionists.
The bell is also associated with the public reading of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia on July 8, 1776, but no contemporary evidence proves that it rang for the reading. Its distinctive crack developed sometime before 1846, and the bell is now preserved at the Liberty Bell Center in Independence National Historical Park.