Talk:List of Pennsylvania firsts

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Pennsylvania is techincally the first state and first capital.

A follow up to this, sorry for not signing. Pennsylvania, AKA Penn's Woods was an established area before the declaration of independence. Its borders were more or less defined and the land was owned by the Penn family. The declaration of independence was signed in Philadelphia, the nation's first capitial and later during the civil war became the nation's capitial the second time. During the signing of the DoP (got sick of writing it out) the order in which representatives signed really didn't matter. New York could have gotten in line first and signed or Pennsylvania could have, but Pennsylvania was a long standing Colonial area that could have been considered a state before the DoP was signed. Virigina was colonized and explorered first, but its borders, laws, etc. weren't as defined as Pennsylvania's were.

The statehood you can debate til you're blue, if signing the DoP first makes Delware the first state, I guess they are. But even if the DoP never happened, the area that we currently call Pennsylvania would still be Pennsylvania.

The capital is established fact with numerous sources to verify, just considering that the DoP was signed there is proof enough. Zanduar 03:32, 18 September 2006 (UTC)