Artifacts preserved inside a 100-year-old unearthed time capsule were revealed on Wednesday at the National WWI Museum in Kansas City, Missouri.
The time capsule’s artifacts were unveiled from a capsule that was buried inside the museum’s Liberty Memorial Tower in 1924, UPI reported Thursday, noting the capsule was extracted a few months ago:
The memorial was built to “honor the courage and sacrifice of the war dead from World War I,” the museum said in a recent video. When it was opened in 1926, more than 100,000 residents of Kansas City attended the event.
The clip shows crews working to remove the time capsule that has been hidden away in the tower’s walls. When it was finally opened, museum curators examined the contents that were well preserved:
During the ceremony on Wednesday, the contents were revealed to be a copy of the U.S. Constitution, newspapers, a Bible, a copy of the U.S. declaration of war from April 1917, a letter from President Calvin Coolidge, and other letters from several Allied commanders, according to UPI.
Coolidge was the 30th President of the United States who served from 1923 until 1929, according to the White House’s website:
Born in Plymouth, Vermont, on July 4, 1872, Coolidge was the son of a village storekeeper. He was graduated from Amherst College with honors, and entered law and politics in Northampton, Massachusetts. Slowly, methodically, he went up the political ladder from councilman in Northampton to Governor of Massachusetts, as a Republican. En route he became thoroughly conservative.
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The political genius of President Coolidge, Walter Lippmann pointed out in 1926, was his talent for effectively doing nothing: “This active inactivity suits the mood and certain of the needs of the country admirably. It suits all the business interests which want to be let alone…. And it suits all those who have become convinced that government in this country has become dangerously complicated and top-heavy….”
Regarding the time capsule, Chief Curator of the World War I Museum and Memorial, Christopher Warren, told KMBC, “It shows the community involvement 100 years ago when they designed and built this memorial, how it’s continued on for 100 years until today.”
