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Article: For sale in NYC: early copy of Magna Carta, signed in 1297
- Article from:
- AP Worldstream
- Article date:
- December 6, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. (Hide copyright information)
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Back in the year 1215, a group of English barons handed King John a document written on parchment. Put your royal seal on this, they said. John did, and the idea of liberty was born.
The document was the Magna Carta, a declaration of human rights that would become a guiding principle for democracy as it is known today.
While that original edict was initially ignored and John died the next year, its key ideas were included in other variations over the next few decades. More than 800 years later, about 17 copies survive, and one of those, signed by King Edward I in 1297, will go up for sale Dec. 18 at Sotheby's.
The document, which Sotheby's vice chairman David Redden ...