Sunday · September 27, 2026

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Philadelphia fallen, Congress sits for a single day in Lancaster

Delegates who fled with the government's records pick Benjamin Franklin for an executive post, then push on to York.

British troops held Philadelphia, and the Continental Congress was running west with whatever papers it could carry. On September 27, 1777, John Hancock and the other delegates reached Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and convened inside the county courthouse for a single session. They chose Benjamin Franklin to help fill an executive role in the still-forming national government, then decided Lancaster wasn't far enough from the British and moved on to York. The delegates left the next morning for York…

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More from September 27

Berlin ceremony formalizes Germany, Italy, and Japan into the Axis alliance

The three powers pledge mutual support if any is attacked, carving the world into spheres of control.

First production Model T leaves the Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit

Twenty horsepower, vanadium steel, and a price aimed square at the middle class.

Fourteen freighters hit the water at once; Roosevelt calls them Liberty ships

At Baltimore's Bethlehem-Fairfield yard, the President borrows Patrick Henry's own words to name a fleet still unbuilt.

The United States recognized Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists before they had even formally reorganized their own government.

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More from Revolution & Founding

Jones refuses to strike, and takes Serapis by lantern light

Lashed to a bigger, better-armed British frigate, the Bonhomme Richard wins by refusing to let go.

Washington signs the Judiciary Act; the Supreme Court gets a chief justice and five associates

The same law creates federal district and circuit courts, and a new office called Attorney General.

Congress sends twelve amendments to the states, ten of them the Bill of Rights

Two other amendments ride along, one on congressional pay that would wait two centuries to become law.

Washington names Jefferson to head a department that does not yet exist in practice

The Virginia planter fresh off five years in Paris becomes the nation's first Secretary of State.

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