The Liberty Bell was commissioned on November 1, 1751, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of William Penn’s Charter of Privileges for the Pennsylvania colony, a radical charter that granted religious liberty to persecuted faiths including Quakers, Jews, Catholics, and others and helped establish America’s tradition of religious freedom. The bell cracked when first tested, then two local foundry men recast it, and it began service in 1753 tolling for special events. During the Revolutionary War, it tolled to announce the Battle of Lexington and Concord and the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence on July 8, 1776. It cracked again on July 8, 1835, during the funeral procession of Chief Justice John Marshall, was repaired, and cracked again in 1846 when it rang for George Washington’s birthday, and it has not been rung since. It was not called the Liberty Bell until 1839, when William Lloyd Garrison’s anti-slavery publication The Liberator published a poem about it, and its adoption by anti-slavery advocates made it a new symbol of freedom. Its association with the American Revolution, its use to toll important events in history, its symbolic role in the anti-slavery movement, and its Biblical inscription, “Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” from Leviticus 25:10, have made it among the most cherished and revered symbols of America freedom.