John Hancock’s large signature appears on the United States Declaration of Independence.
Hancock was president of the Continental Congress when it adopted the Declaration. His prominent signature became one of the document’s most recognizable features, and in the United States, “John Hancock” later became an informal term for a person’s signature. Hancock was also a wealthy Boston merchant and an important supporter of the colonial resistance.
A popular story says Hancock signed his name unusually large so that King George III could read it without spectacles, but that anecdote is considered apocryphal. The famous parchment copy was signed mainly on August 2, 1776, rather than during the July 4 adoption. Hancock was the first person named on the document’s early printed broadside.