A 6,000 Year Wait

In 1936 Dr. Thornwell Jacobs set out to solve a problem. He wanted to ensure that in 6,000 years historians would be guaranteed an accurate snapshot of life in the 20th century. His solution: the biggest time capsule ever assembled. He collected phonographs, microfilm containing the Bible, the Koran, the Illiad and Dante's Inferno among other significant literary works, a sewing machine and one of the first televisions. He even dropped in a couple of mannikins - male and female - for good measure. Everything he collected was then placed in airtight containers which were in turn placed into an olympic-sized swimming pool he had converted into a crypt.

Along with everything else, Dr. Jacobs included a hand-crank machine consisting of only 1,500 words known as "Basic English," a subset of standard English. His hope was for the people of the future to use the machine to teach themselves English much like the Rosetta stone.

For more information on the project check out this Damn Interesting article. And the complete contents of the crypt are listed here.

A few items I'd include in my cultural snapshot:

- "Darkside of the Moon" by Pink Floyd
- "The 400 Blows" directed by Francais Truffaut
- A case of twinkies
- The first four Ramones albums
- KY warming gel
- An Ipod
- The entire series of "Seinfeld"
- The complete works of Mozart
- "Young Frankenstein" directed by Mel Brooks
- a used laptop
- Dylan's non-Christian albums
- "Snakes on a Plane"
- Picasso's "Guernica"
- A box of Mac & Cheese
- Assorted anime (it's all the same)
- A booklet of Sudoku puzzles
- This
- The early recordings of Louis Armstrong