SKIRMISHER

Somewhere in the basement of Oglethorpe University in Georgia is a steel room containing the knick-knacks from that romantic period just before the Second World War.

Damn Interesting describes it:

Behind this door lies a 20′ x 10′ waterproofed room containing a menagerie of once-modern artifacts and microfilm records, placed there by men and women in the years between 1937 and 1940. If their goal is realized, the contents of this vault will remain unseen and undisturbed for the next 6,107 years. This ambitious project, which began in the dawn of the Second World War, is known as the Crypt of Civilization; it represents the first concerted effort to collect and preserve a snapshot of human civilization and technology. Though the term had not yet been coined at its inception, it was the first modern time capsule.

So unfortunate that the said time capsule had been welded shut before the Allies were able to retrieve Adolf Hitler’s squarish, wrinkly testicles; it would have been a great artifact to show to kids six thousand years in the future to aid PowerPoint presentations on the German art of feasting on sauerkraut.

via DAMN INTERESTING

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