In what year was the Liberty Bell commissioned?

The Liberty Bell was commissioned in 1752 by Pennsylvania's Provincial Assembly.

The assembly ordered the bell from the London firm Lester and Pack, later known as the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. It was intended for the Pennsylvania State House, now Independence Hall, in Philadelphia. The bell carried an inscription drawn from Leviticus: “Proclaim LIBERTY Throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants Thereof.”

The bell cracked when it was first tested after arriving in Philadelphia. Local founders John Pass and John Stow recast it twice in 1753, and their names appear on the bell. The object later became associated with American independence and was popularly called the Liberty Bell by abolitionists in the nineteenth century.

The bell's connection with July 1776 is partly traditional. It may have rung when the declaration was publicly read in Philadelphia on July 8, 1776, but no contemporary account proves that event. Its 1752 commissioning date therefore predates the Revolution by more than two decades.