69-39-80

That's the distant year the Westinghouse Time capsule is scheduled to be unearthed and opened.

Buried 50 feet below ground outside the town of Flushing, the capsule, named for the electric company that sponsored it,

was created for the 1939 World's Fair in New York, and entombed as a branded gift to whoever occupied Earth 5,000 years in the future.

The Fair was famously commemorated in the E.B. White's Rhapsodic essay The World of Tomorrow,

which described an elaborate interactive exhibit named Futurama that took wild swings at predicting the next 50 years.

Automated cars taking hairpin turns at 100 miles per hour, and vast apple orchards growing inside biosphere.

In the end, Futurama was less an accurate predictor of the future and more primitive inspiration for Disney's Epcot Center.

The Fair also included a communications and business zone, which showed off IBM's fantastical electric calculator,

an amusement zone, which entertained attendees with a monkey mountain comprised of 600 live primates,

and a Jewish Palestine pavilion, which introduced the concept of establishing the state of Israel.

And the World's Fair also included a food zone, and among its display of mechanized milking machines and array of international delicacies,

perhaps its most consequential contribution was introducing to the American consciousness the Swedish self-serve eating arrangement called the Smorgas Board.

As with many foreign foods, Americans adopted the Smorgas Board as their own and heightened it to absurdity,

and after the rationing of the Second World War gave way to a booming economy and agricultural surplus,

Buffets exploded in popularity across the U.S. The wide array of hot and cold dishes laid out in long tables and steam trays was defined by four words,

all you can eat, later reworked to all you care to eat to discourage unprofitable binging.

Buffets became a staple throughout the country, as lost leaders in casinos and as budget-friendly options for working-class families and seniors.

In 1983, the trend far from over, restaurateurs Row Hatlin and C. Dennis Scott founded Ovation Brands by opening their first buffet in Clearwater, Florida.

Today, they operated over 100 all you care to eat restaurants across North America.

It's impossible to predict what food culture will look like in 69.39 should humanity survive.

But today, American dining has been transformed by the Smorgas Board of the World's Fair of 1939.

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