Dear America,
We don't know your names. We don't know what your cities look like, what you drive, what you call home, or whether the devices we consider miraculous now will look to you like toys from a museum.
But we know where you're standing.
On July 4, 2276, somewhere near Independence Hall in Philadelphia, you will open a time capsule our generation buried 250 years earlier. Ten feet beneath the ground, sealed inside steel, we left you pieces of ourselves and pieces of the country we inherited.
The Library of Congress placed something remarkable inside: a metal vial about the length of a pencil eraser holds synthetic DNA encoded with digital copies of Thomas Jefferson's rough draft of the Declaration of Independence, Francis Scott Key's handwritten words to "The Star-Spangled Banner," Pierre L'Enfant's plan for Washington, early congressional records, Native American recordings in Passamaquoddy, and a family tree containing more than 1,500 names.
From the Library of Congress:
Maintained by the park and the National Park Service, it is not to be opened until July 4, 2276. Hundreds of other items – letters, memorabilia and documents, all helping tell the story of the nation’s history and culture – were all tucked in the capsule, including from all three branches of government, the Supreme Court and all states and territories. The Library’s experts helped determine which items could survive two and and a half centuries. (A bottle of Coca-Cola, an I-Phone, and the starting lineup of the Philadelphia Phillies all made the cut.)
For the Library’s tiny, data-packed cylinder, the Library initiated a molecular data storage feasibility study in response to a request from Congress in 2024. As a result, the Library has been examining the storage capabilities of a new medium, synthetic DNA. An entirely manufactured molecule, synthetic DNA is designed to replicate the exceptional information density of nature’s best storage medium: DNA itself.
Working with the University of Washington’s Molecular Information Systems Lab, the Library has converted selected digital data into synthesized DNA strands encased in a metal vial about the length of a pencil eraser.
The storage technology is astonishing. One cubic millimeter of synthetic DNA can hold about nine terabytes of data, and the material can survive for thousands of years with little maintenance or power.
We even left you a decoding chip so you can reconstruct what we put there.
From the Library of Congress:
Working with the University of Washington’s Molecular Information Systems Lab, the Library has converted selected digital data into synthesized DNA strands encased in a metal vial about the length of a pencil eraser.
The synthetic DNA includes, among other Library collection items, digital copies of: Thomas Jefferson’s rough draft of the Declaration of Independence; “The Star-Spangled Banner” lyrics written in Francis Scott Key’s hand; the 1791 L’Enfant plan for Washington, D.C.; digitized 1890 Native American audio recordings in Passamaquoddy; the canvas drawing of the Blackwell’s Kinfolk family tree, depicting more than 1,500 names; and the Annals of the Congress of the United States, covering congressional proceedings, including the making of the Constitution, from 1789 to 1824.
Synthetic DNA can store about nine terabytes of digital data in one cubic millimeter, approximately 1,000 to 100,000 times greater than the capacity of conventional digital storage methods like hard drives, tape drives and cloud storage. It also is highly durable, lasting thousands of years with little to no maintenance or power consumption.
We were clever enough to tell you how to read the files. I wish we could tell you how to keep the country.
America250 buried the capsule on our 250th birthday at Independence National Historical Park. It's meant to remain sealed until the nation turns 500.
Every state and territory contributed something, along with all three branches of the federal government and other institutions trying to leave you a picture of America as it existed in 2026.
Some of what we sent is profound; some is wonderfully ordinary: a bottle of Coca-Cola made the trip. So did an iPhone and the starting lineup of the Philadelphia Phillies.
Maybe that's fitting. Nations aren't made only of constitutions and court decisions. They're made of songs, families, ballgames, meals, arguments, neighborhoods, faith, grief, jokes, work, and all the small routines people barely notice while living them.
I wonder which parts of us will make sense to you. Jefferson's words will be 500 years old when you read them. Will "all men are created equal" still sound like a promise Americans are trying to fulfill? Will freedom of speech still be defended when the speech is ugly or unpopular? Will you still argue fiercely over elections and then remember that the country belongs to all of us afterward?
Most of all, did we leave you the Republic?
Benjamin Franklin was reportedly asked after the Constitutional Convention in 1787 what kind of government the delegates had created. His answer still follows us more than two centuries later:
"A republic, if you can keep it."
We'll never know whether you kept it. We'll never know whether we did enough to make your part easier. Everyone alive when we buried that capsule will be gone when you open it, and even our grandchildren will belong to your history books.
We're sending you objects because objects survive us. The things that matter most can't be sealed inside steel.
Liberty has to be taught again, self-government has to be practiced again, and the Constitution has to be defended again. Every generation receives the inheritance, spends part of it, adds something of its own, and hands what remains to people it will never meet.
So when you open the capsule, understand what we were trying to say across 250 years.
We were here, and we were imperfect. We argued, failed, built, repaired, fought, forgave, and tried again. Through all of it, we loved this country enough to think about you.
We hoped you would still know Jefferson's words.
We hoped you would still recognize Franklin's warning.
Most of all, we hoped that when July 4, 2276, finally arrived, there would still be an America waiting to open the box.
