It's 1976. The average annual salary in the U.S. is just over $9,000. There is no internet to entertain us,

but Jaws is back in theaters, and afternoon delight is burning up the charts. Nixon has resigned in

disgrace, so now Ford is president. The Vietnam War has finally come to a close.

And now an ambivalent country is about to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Wall of Washington is trying to get hyped.

There's going to be fireworks, a huge celebration on the mall.

And in the U.S. Capitol building,

in the marbled, beautiful statuary hall, there's a big iron safe.

Like, picture like a Western where they're robbing a train and there's a safe on one of the cars of the railroad train.

And it's this big iron monstrous thing.

But it's sort of portable.

That kind of a safe, like a 19th century safe.

This is historian, Jill Lepore.

The safe, which is known as the century safe, sometimes called the Centennial Safe, was specially built

on the occasion 100 years before, not of the bicentennial, but of the Centennial, the 100th

anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

The Century Safe was created in 1876 to mark the country's 100th birthday.

The idea was to make a time capsule, to fill the safe with objects, things hand-selected to represent the moment they came from. Those meaningful objects were hidden away inside the safe and the doors were sealed. And written on the doors were instructions to the future.

It is inscribed upon it the promise that it will be opened by the President of the United States

in the crazy futuristic year of 1976.

Good morning to all of you.

Happy birthday to the USA.

...