America’s Time Capsule was buried in Philadelphia for the America250 commemoration.
Philadelphia was selected because it was central to the founding-era history represented by the anniversary. The city hosted the Continental Congress, the drafting and adoption of the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitutional Convention. Independence National Historical Park preserves several of those associated sites.
The capsule is intended to carry material from the present into the distant future. Its contents include contributions connected with the states, territories, federal government, and America250 partners, making it a national record rather than a city archive.
Philadelphia is sometimes confused with Washington, D.C., the modern federal capital, or Boston and New York City, which were also major Revolutionary-era centers. The official time-capsule burial site, however, is Philadelphia, one of the leading historic cities named in the federal semiquincentennial planning law.