Rare 1776 Copy of Declaration of Independence Found in UK

A volunteer in Britain's National Archives has stumbled on something the US thought it had entirely to itself. While sorting through 18th-century Royal Navy papers in February, Michael Scurr opened a folded sheet and realized he was looking at a 1776 printing of the Declaration of Independence—one of just 11 known copies produced in Exeter, New Hampshire, that summer, and the only one found outside America, reports the BBC.

Britain got hold of the document when one of its ships captured an American vessel off Portugal on Christmas Eve 1776 after a seven-hour chase, notes NBC News, which adds that the American captain likely had it on board to inspire the crew. It ended up among the letters of British Capt. Thomas Fitzherbert—labeled simply as "another paper"—and eventually got moved to the National Archives, where it was lost for centuries. The copy—described by archivist Graham Moore as "one of the rarest forms of the Declaration we know about" and the only one known to have been taken in military action—is now on display at the National Archives in London.