5/20/2023 0 Comments Nuclear time capsules![]() ![]() The Crypt remains at Oglethorpe University to this day, and is now more than 75 years into its long journey to the year 8113 A.D. Jacobs decreed that it should remain closed for 6,177 years-the same amount of time that was then thought to have passed since the beginning of recorded history. The entire haul was welded off behind an airtight stainless steel door during a ceremony in May 1940. The vault even features a special “language integrator” to help teach English to whoever might find it. Beginning in 1937, he converted an underground 20-by-10 chamber in the administration building into a museum of civilization filled with everything from 640,000 pages of microfilmed books and religious texts to an early television, a container of beer and a set of toy Lincoln Logs. The project was the brainchild of the university’s president, Thornwell Jacobs, who believed it might serve as a valuable record for archaeologists in the distant future. Most time capsules contain only a few trinkets or letters, but Oglethorpe University’s “Crypt of Civilization” represents an audacious attempt to preserve all of human knowledge for posterity. Most exciting of all was a silver plaque-most likely the work of Revere-that read, “This cornerstone of a building intended for the use of the legislative and executive branches of the government of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was laid by his Excellency Samuel Adams, Esquire, governor of the said Commonwealth.” 3. When it was finally unsealed in 2015, however, it was found to contain a trove of preserved artifacts including newspapers, coins dating back to the 1600s, a page from the Massachusetts Colony Records and a copper medal with an image of “General of the American Army” George Washington. It had already been opened once in 1855 for cleaning and the addition of new artifacts, and historians were initially unsure if its contents had survived intact. In late 2014, repairmen fixing a water leak at the Massachusetts State House uncovered a brass box that the two former Sons of Liberty had placed in a cornerstone to mark the building’s construction back in 1795. ![]() The United States’ oldest known time capsule was the work of none other than Samuel Adams and Paul Revere. ![]() Hatchfield holding the 1652 “Pine Tree Shilling” found in the capsule The Massachusetts State House Time Capsule At a ceremony attended by President Gerald Ford, Senator Mike Mansfield said the opening had honored “the wish of a lady who sought to speak to us from the other side of a 100-year gulf.” 2. Though nearly forgotten, it was later rediscovered, restored and unlocked on schedule in July 1976 during the nation’s bicentennial festivities. Capitol and eventually left to languish under the East Portico. After being sealed in 1879, the purple velvet-lined safe was taken to the U.S. Grant and other politicians taken by photographer Mathew Brady. The iron box was stuffed with 19th century relics including a gold pen and inkstand, a book on temperance, a collection of Americans’ signatures, and snapshots of President Ulysses S. The world’s first planned time capsule debuted in 1876, when New York magazine publisher Anna Deihm assembled a “Century Safe” at the U.S. ![]()
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