According to legend, John Hancock signed the Declaration of Independence with a signature so large that the King of England could see it without his spectacles. That bit of bravado has long been a staple of American history classes. I must have heard it several times growing up, and even in college. Yet I never got the joke until many years later. To repudiate the king was an act of treason. Should Hancock have been caught, the signed Declaration would have been the first and only necessary piece of evidence in his treason trial.
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