{"id":282912,"date":"2026-09-10T11:04:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T11:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/282912\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T11:04:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T11:04:12","slug":"philly-time-capsule-from-1976-was-unsealed-as-part-of-america250-festivities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/282912\/","title":{"rendered":"Philly time capsule from 1976 was unsealed as part of America250 festivities"},"content":{"rendered":"

Love Philly? So do we. Let\u2019s be friends.\u00a0Sign up for the Billy Penn newsletter today<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania politicians and leaders came together Wednesday at the Independence Visitor Center to unseal a secret 50 years in the making.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The secret wasn\u2019t a private record or official testimony, but a time capsule sealed in a cardboard box.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Doing the honors of opening that time capsule was Catherine Simons, who was among the students at General George A. McCall School who sealed the capsule back in 1976. Aiding Simons in the unsealing were current elementary students from McCall who listened through speeches by local leaders before the capsule\u2019s opening.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Pennsylvania House of Representatives Speaker Joanna McClinton, applauds a woman in the audience whom she said was 102 \u201cyears young\u201d who was there for the sealing of the 1976 time capsule. (Davis Cuffe\/Billy Penn)<\/p>\n

Speakers included Pennsylvania House Speaker Joanna McClinton, Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Kevin Dougherty and America250PA Executive Director Cassandra Coleman. The diverse crowd included some who had sealed the capsule in 1976, local politicians and a group of high school students who\u2019d traveled from across the state for a day of civic learning.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis gavel I have right now I will give to another state representative one day,\u201d said McClinton. \u201cAnd there will be one of you leading the Pennsylvania House, one of you leading our state court systems, one of you in City Hall.\u201d<\/p>\n

The event was one of many America250 celebrations Philadelphia has hosted as the city serves as\u00a0 the epicenter of the nation\u2019s 250th birthday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After roughly 45 minutes of speeches, the capsule was opened to reveal a book full of pictures, newspaper clippings and letters from 1976. Its contents seemed to be foreign to the elementary schoolers who opened the capsule and likely grew up around more AI than handwritten letters. They stared blankly at the capsule\u2019s contents, contrasting with the excited reactions from those who\u2019d sealed it \u2014\u00a0 they later flipped through it, looking for pictures of people they grew up with.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"The contents of the time capsule included photos, newspaper clippings and letters from 1976. (Davis Cuffe\/Billy Penn)<\/p>\n

The time capsule was then resealed \u2014 this time with a letter from Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker \u2014 to be opened in 2076, 100 years after its original sealing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Parker\u2019s letter was included at the request of Frank L. Rizzo, Philadelphia\u2019s mayor from 1972 to 1980, who helped launch the initiative.<\/p>\n

The Pennsylvania high schoolers in attendance were brought to Philly through America250PA\u2019s civics education program. The students then watched the legislative branch in action inside Congress Hall and sat down with members of Pennsylvania\u2019s Supreme, Superior and Commonwealth Courts at Carpenters\u2019 Hall.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Their visit was designed to show how the history preserved in these buildings connects with the choices they\u2019ll make as the Commonwealth\u2019s next generation of voters, advocates and public servants.<\/p>\n

Riverview High School senior Dmitri Hong, who traveled from Allegheny County, said the event inspired him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very excited for what we\u2019re gonna be doing next,\u201d said Hong. \u201cThe content of all the speeches was really meaningful and pretty impactful to me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Love Philly? So do we. Let\u2019s be friends.\u00a0Sign up for the Billy Penn newsletter today. Pennsylvania politicians and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4000,227,94,22714,69,71,70,72199],"class_list":["post-282912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-america-250","tag-education","tag-history","tag-joanna-mcclinton","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-time-capsule"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}