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Time capsules bring history to the present and provide future generations insight into what life was like in the past. In 2122, if one were to dig up a time capsule that encompassed 2020 to 2022, it would undoubtedly tell the story of the COVID-19 pandemic, perhaps with a face mask, a home testing kit, and a computer fully equipped with Zoom. Oh, and let’s not forget a recipe for sourdough starter and a phone with TikTok installed.

Time capsules have been around for centuries, and some of the oldest have included items that date back to the 1600s. Here are a few of the most fascinating time capsules in history.

Paul Revere and Samuel Adams Time Capsule, 1795–2015

On July 4, 1795, American patriot Paul Revere, Massachusetts Governor Samuel Adams, and Revolutionary War Colonel William Scollay created what is considered the world’s oldest known time capsule. At a ceremony marking the completion of the Massachusetts State House, they placed items underneath the cornerstone of the building. It remained there until 1855, when it was dug up during emergency repairs. Then-Governor Henry Gardner added more objects to the collection, and the capsule was eventually reburied. During repairs in 2014, the time capsule was retrieved again, and its contents were finally revealed. It included coins minted as early as 1667, an engraved silver plaque, and a medal depicting George Washington. Following an exhibit of the artifacts at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, the time capsule was replaced in the state house.

The Century Safe, 1876–1976

In his book Time Capsules: A Cultural History, William E. Jarvis identifies the Century Safe as the first modern time capsule, due to its specified reopening date. Magazine publisher Anna Deihm chose the items — including photos of government leaders and inkstands belonging to famous writers — as part of the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. She enclosed them in a 5-foot-tall iron safe, which she gave to the U.S. House of Representatives to reopen in 1976. The huge, heavy box ended up stored on the Capitol’s east portico for the next eight decades. When the time came to open it during the nation’s bicentennial, no one remembered where the keys were, and a locksmith had to crack it open.

Westinghouse Time Capsule, 1938–6938

George E. Pendray coined the phrase “time capsule” when he coordinated the Westinghouse Time Capsule at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. The 7.5-foot-long, tube-shaped container was made of the company’s new copper alloy, Cupaloy, designed to withstand burial for 5,000 years. Pendray solicited suggestions for its contents from leading thinkers, and ended up with a mix meant to represent life in the 1930s, ranging from a can opener and textiles to seeds. Microfilms of written material and newsreels completed the contents. The capsule was buried on September 23, 1938, on the World’s Fair grounds, where it remains today. Westinghouse added a second time capsule to the vault during the 1964 World’s Fair. The items are intended to be dug up around 6938.

Crypt of Civilization, 1940–8113

In 1936, inspired by the discoveries of ancient Egyptian tombs in the 1920s, Oglethorpe University president Thornwell Jacobs imagined a collection of items that would show future archaeologists life in the 20th century. He stipulated that this “crypt of civilization” should be opened in the year 8113, a date he determined by doubling the number of years between what was believed to be the start of the Egyptian calendar (4241 BCE) and 1936, so that his collection would represent the midpoint of world history. Over three years, Jacobs amassed donated items as diverse as dental floss, beer, and an original script of Gone With the Wind, and built an impenetrable chamber on the university’s Georgia campus in which to store them. In May 1940, the crypt was sealed behind a steel door for (almost) all eternity.

Expo ’70 Time Capsule, 1970–6970

The time capsule craze was still going strong in 1970 when the Panasonic Corporation and Mainichi Newspapers assembled two identical capsules during the Japan World Exposition in 1970. The first will remain sealed until 6970, while the second was reopened for inspection in 2000 and is scheduled for regular maintenance every 100 years. Organizers included an extensive selection of Japanese cultural objects, literature, and modern inventions in two large steel cylinders, which were lowered by crane into the ground next to Osaka Castle in January 1971.

Millennium Vault, 2000–3000

Along with the fear of malfunctioning computers, Y2K brought on a wave of interest in time capsules commemorating the 20th century. Organizers in Surrey, U.K., assembled an especially nostalgic collection of objects for Europe’s — and the world’s — largest time capsule vault on the grounds of Guildford Castle. Behind the brick façade, scheduled to be reopened in the year 3000, are a rust-proof Cooper Mini, a Rolls Royce hood ornament, a Sony Walkman, a life-size photograph of World War II-era singer Vera Lynn, and other artifacts. The U.S. had its own — and much smaller — millennium time capsule containing a chunk of the Berlin Wall, Ray Charles’ sunglasses, a Twinkie, and more, due for unearthing in 2100.

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Even today, the highest position of executive power is held by a woman in only 15 countries (at the time of writing). Yet throughout history — dating back to the early civilization of Sumer — women have been making moves to speak up, fight back, and take action, continuing the millennia-long battle for gender equality in leadership.

From Hatshepsut in ancient Egypt and Queen of Sheba in southwestern Arabia to Catherine the Great of Russia and British royals such as Queen Elizabeth I and II and Queen Victoria, many female rulers have carved out their place in history — yet so many other greats have also made major strides but remain overlooked. Here are six of the strongest women who have ever ruled.

Elizabeth of Russia

The daughter of Peter the Great, Elizabeth of Russia (born Yelizaveta Petrovna in 1709) remained relatively quiet during the reigns of her father (who ruled from 1682 to 1725), her mother Catherine (from 1725 to 1727), Peter II (1727 to 1730) and Anna (1730 to 1740). However, when Anna Leopoldnova stepped in as Russia’s regent for her son Ivan VI, Elizabeth staged a palace coup in 1741 and became empress.

Elizabeth immediately made bold moves, like ending the government cabinet council system and bringing back the Senate system her father had established. While many of her acts were reminiscent of her father’s reign, she also paved new ground, founding Russia’s first university in Moscow and an arts academy in St. Petersburg, as well as building the Winter Palace. But perhaps her greatest act was in May of 1744, when she demanded all the state prisons cease executions without a royal decree, requiring detailed reports of each prisoner on death row. While this didn’t formally abolish the death penalty, not a single person was executed during her 21-year reign from 1741 to 1761.  

Queen Tomyris of Massagetae

Among the many paintings hanging in the Red Room of Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland is an oil canvas by Victor Wolfvoet from the 1600s titled The Head of Cyrus Brought to Queen Tomyris. In it, Persian king Cyrus the Great’s severed head is being forced to drink human blood, literally at the level of Tomyris’ feet. The queen’s triumphant moment symbolizes the victory of the Central Asia nomadic tribe of Massagetae over Persia across the river — a storied part of ancient history, which has cemented her lasting reputation as the “bad-ass Queen of the Steppes,” as described by Red Sonia comic book artist Mark Russell.

While many tales of Cyrus’ death have been told over the years, it’s generally believed he died around 529 BCE under the direction of Tomyris, who was merely trying to protect her dominion. After conquering Babylon, Cyrus turned his focus on Massagetae and how to best outsmart Tomyris. His first attempt: offering to marry her. But she saw right through that. Outraged, he started building ways to get across the river, but Tomyris is said to have responded, “Be content to rule in peace your own kingdom, and bear to see us reign over the countries that are ours to govern.”

Cyrus refused to give up and captured her son Spargapises in a bloody surprise attack to which she retorted: “Restore my son to me and get you from the land unharmed, triumphant over a third part of the host of the Massagetai. Refuse, and I swear by the sun, the sovereign lord of the Massagetai, bloodthirsty as you are, I will give you your fill of blood.” And it is with that motherly instinct mixed with pure sovereignty that she succeeded in making that promise come true.

Queen Salamasina of Samoa

The male-dominated society of Samoa seemed like an unlikely place for a female ruler in the 15th century, but that was exactly what happened when Salamasina was given the “highest office in the western islands of Samoa.” But the traditions were so well-entrenched that several scholars have even referred to her as a “son” of Tuia‘ana Tamaalelagi.

Her reign came to be as a complex maneuvering of titles through bloodlines, some which were even strategized before her birth. Her adopted grandmother was set on making her tupu o’Samoa — the ruler of all Samoa. “One day she said, ‘This is it. This is the girl who can bring Samoa together,’” a historian explained in a Tagata Pasifika documentary, Women of Power in the Pacific.

While born into the role, Salamasina used it to ignite one of Samoa’s most peaceful periods — 60 years without warfare.

Queen Boudica of Britain

Married to the king of Iceni (where modern East Angila is), Prasutagus, the Celtic queen Boudica is thought to have been born around 30 CE to a well-to-do family. When Romans took over southern England in 43 CE, Prasutagus was allowed to continue ruling, as long as he remained an ally. Upon his death 13 years later, both his kingdom and his family’s land were taken by the Romans since he didn’t have any male heirs. To make matters worse, Boudica was publicly flogged and her daughters were raped.

But Boudica was a trained warrior, unwilling to stand aside and watch this injustice and violence. “Nothing is safe from Roman pride and arrogance,” she said. “They will deface the sacred and will deflower our virgins. Win the battle or perish, that is what I, a woman, will do.” And around 60 CE, she led a revolution against the powerful Roman Empire.

Against the odds, she defeated the Roman Ninth Legion and destroyed Camulodunum, the center of Roman Britain, as well as London and Verulamium. But in the end, the Roman forces were just too strong. Boudica and her daughters are thought to have taken poison and killed themselves to avoid surrendering.

Princess Enheduanna of Akkad

More than 4,000 years ago, Enheduanna, the daughter of the world’s first emperor, Sargon the Great, was given an essential task as the high priestess of the ancient city of Ur at the mouth of the Euphrates River: She had to find a way to to unite the various city-states of Sumer, which her father had conquered in the 24th and 23rd centuries BCE.

The priestess title meant that she was also the empire’s supreme religious leader, tasked with joining those who looked up to the Sumerian goddess of love and fertility, Inanna, with her dad’s deity, the goddess of war and sexuality Ishtar. And the Akkadian princess found the most innovative way to do so — with words.

As the first known poet, she had such a way with her verses and prayers that she’s seen as one of the most influential figures in religion, literature, and politics, making her “really powerful, and not just in a political domain: ritual supports politics and vice versa,” as St. John’s University art history professor Amy Gansell told National Geographic.

“King” Tamar of Georgia

“I have long been fascinated by King Tamar,” Hillary Clinton said at a Town Hall with Georgian Women Leaders in 2010 when she was Secretary of State. “And some… may not know that King Tamar was a woman who led what is referred to as the Golden Age in Georgia.”

Indeed, the only daughter of the nation of Georgia’s King Giorgi was Tamara (also called Tamar), who the king made a co-ruler in 1178. When King Giorgi died in 1184, his daughter took over completely. While she was and is often referred to as “King Tamar,” she was a female ruler, and a prime example of standing up for women’s rights. Forced into an abusive relationship, she divorced her first husband, Prince George Boboglyubski of Kiev, and sent him into exile. When he recruited a rebel army to take her down, she triumphed once again.

After her 1213 death, she was made an Orthodox Church Saint for leading one of the greatest periods in the nation’s history.

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Most of us spend around a third of our lives in bed, but how much time do you spend thinking about your bed itself? Folks didn’t always sleep alone (or with a partner) in private rooms on foam mattresses — if you were born tens of millennia earlier, you might even have slept in a hole.

What bed is so large that we still read verse about it today? Where did the term “California king” come from? These six facts about beds will give you something to think about when you’re drifting off to sleep.

The Earliest Beds May Have Been About Pest Prevention

Humans lived in Sibudu Cave in South Africa at least 77,000 years ago, and according to some archaeologists, early people made their beds there. Those passing through would gather plant matter from outside the cave, then pile it in shallow holes in the cave floor. The bedding included Cape laurel, an aromatic tree that’s a natural pest repellent. Laundry was pretty easy: People would periodically burn the bedding in the hole and start over, which researchers believe was a way of killing pests and cleaning up garbage.

We’re Still Reading About a Giant 16th-Century Novelty Bed

The Great Bed of Ware was constructed around 1590 in Ware, Hertfordshire, England, at the time about a day’s journey from London. Historians think it was made as a tourist attraction, and if that’s true, it was extremely successful — it was immortalized in popular verse, and people still visit it today at the London-based Victoria and Albert Museum.

The ornate canopy bed is a whopping 10 feet wide, 11 feet long, and nearly 9 feet high, and was often used as a literary device to imply either bigness or lewdness. Most famously, Shakespeare referenced the bed in Twelfth Night: “As many lies as will lie in thy sheet of paper, although the sheet were big enough for the bed of Ware.”

Legend has it that 26 couples (52 people!) spent one night in it together for a bet in 1689. That may be apocryphal, but countless people did sleep in it at one point or another. Some even carved their initials in the posts, many of which are still visible today.

Bed-Sharing With Friends (and Strangers) Was Common Until Very Recently

Before bedrooms emerged (and for a while after), it was common to share not just rooms, but beds, too, and not even with people you knew particularly well. Even family beds were sometimes shared with the odd traveler. In wealthy households, servants would sleep at the foot of their boss’s bed. The 17th-century diarist Samuel Pepys often had sleepovers with his friends, sharing a bed and having conversations. Benjamin Franklin and John Adams even shared a bed once in a New Jersey inn; they could not agree on whether to keep the window in the small room open or closed. Large, communal beds at inns weren’t unheard of; travelers often slept with strangers (it’s even mentioned in Moby Dick). A French phrasebook for medieval travelers included phrases for admonishing bedmates. As far back as 5000 BCE, travelers shared large, stone beds in China and Mongolia, and brought their own bedding. People occasionally share beds with strangers today, too, although it’s not generally encouraged.

Shakespeare Left His Wife His “Second-Best Bed”

Near the end of William Shakespeare’s last will and testament, he leaves a specific item to his wife, Anne Hathaway: “Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed.”

It wasn’t meant to be insulting — beds were a major luxury item at the time, and the best bed was often a centerpiece item displayed in a common area and offered to guests. The second-best bed was probably the bed they actually slept in together. Scientific analysis of the will shows that the bed was a somewhat late addition to the document; it’s possible the Bard started bequeathing personal items after he knew he was dying.

California Kings Came Before Regular Kings

California king mattresses are actually slightly narrower and longer than regular kings. But California kings were invented to be big, and at the time, they didn’t have a lot of competition.

Sometime between the 1920s and the 1940s, a Los Angeles mattress salesman wanted a glamorously large bed that he could market specifically to Angelenos with larger homes. He developed an 84-inch-long mattress and called it the California king.

After World War II, big beds started sweeping the nation, but other mattress manufacturers standardized the measurements a little bit so their king mattresses were the size of two twins pushed together. For a while, what we know now as just a “king” was called the “Eastern king.” At some point, the non-California bed dropped the qualifier and its longer counterpart did not.

Waterbeds Used To Be Medical Devices

When most people think of waterbeds, they think of the luxury item that rose to prominence in the 1970s. But the first modern waterbed came along in 1833, when Scottish inventor and doctor Neil Arnott invented the “hydrostatic bed for invalids,” designed to reduce recovery time, increase patient comfort, and reduce bedsores. By placing a soft mattress on top of a bath with waterproof rubber on top, he wrote, “[the patient] would repose on the face of the water, like a swan on its plumage, without sensible pressure anywhere.”

Waterbeds actually took off for a while in a medical setting, including in at least one Civil War army hospital. Meanwhile, the more recreational waterbed we’re used to now was invented in the late 1960s.