This week in 1776 (June 15–21), the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia was laying the final groundwork for American independence. Most notably on June 15, 1776, the Assembly of the Lower Counties of Pennsylvania declared itself independent of both British and Pennsylvanian authority, officially creating the state of Delaware.  -Adams Memorial Foundation

Congress appointed the committee that would draft the Declaration of Independence: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston.

Meanwhile, George Washington remained in New York, unaware that a massive British fleet had begun sailing south from Halifax toward New York City.  -Mount Vernon Group

The Committee of Five of the Second Continental Congress was a group of five members who drafted and presented to the full Congress in Pennsylvania State House what would become the United States Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776. This Declaration committee operated from June 11, 1776, until July 5, 1776, the day on which the Declaration was published.

Detail from John Trumbull’s 1818 painting of the Committee of Five presenting their draft of the Declaration of Independence to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia. From left to right: John Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin.

-Wikipedia