The Metropolitan AME Church’s spirited “homecoming” service Sunday concluded with the D.C. congregation’s children placing items important to the church’s 173-year history into a time capsule that will be opened in more than 100 years.

Church members put hymn books and church records into a silver vault, along with photographs from President Bill Clinton’s inaugural prayer service, Rosa Parks’s funeral and the day President Obama and his family came t

“It is so important in the history of African America that we not only preserve our history, but we lift up our future,” said the Rev. Ronald E. Braxton, the church’s pastor. “This time capsule talks about the 173 years that we have been in this city, and we have made a tremendous contribution.”

The National Shooting Sports Foundation has sealed a time capsule that is intended to be opened on the organization's 100 year anniversary.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation has packed a time capsule with materials that reflect the state of firearms ownership, target shooting and hunting in the year 2011 and that tell the story of how NSSF, the firearms industry’s trade association, has helped promote, preserve and protect those freedoms over the last half century.

The time capsule project is the last major event commemorating NSSF’s 50th Anniversary celebration this year. It was a half century ago this month that NSSF was officially incorporated.

The 1 x 2 x 3-foot composite-material box –stamped “Open in 2061!”– will be on display at NSSF’s headquarters.

Photos, newspaper clippings and more Westlake memorabilia will be sealed inside a steel time capsule at 6 p.m. at City Hall.

And this time capsule is built to last. Historical Society President Lysa Stanton said it will be equipped with argon gas and made of steel, and then placed inside a vault before it’s buried.

Hopefully, Westlake residents will open the capsule on the city's tricentennial in 2111. A sister time capsule will be buried alongside, to be opened in 2036 and every 25 years after that. That way any outdated technology can be updated as needed.

The Mt. Prospect Historical Society will bury another time capsule at the new Randhurst Village lifestyle center, but when and where have yet to be decided.

Executive Director Greg Peerbolte said the aluminum rectangular box is more than half full at this point in time after an event at Randhurst on Oct. 22 saw several people drop little notes into the capsule on what the former indoor mall meant to them.

Drew University in suburban New York opened a time capsule from 1957 that was discovered in the cornerstone of a University building.

In addition to pamphlets, catalogs and the Dec. 16, 1957 issue of The Acorn, the battered copper capsule also contained an alumni newsletter, a map of campus and 16 cents—this last made up of a nickel, an old-fashioned “wheat penny” and a silver dime.

According to Director of Facilities and Special Projects Mike Kopas, “contractors found the capsule…within the 1957 cornerstone of the [UniversityCenter],” and passed it on to Director of Planning, Design and Construction Jim Hall and Chief Communications Officer Dave Muha.

Filled with excitement and anticipation, more than 100 Palisades Charter High School students, staff and alumni gathered on Friday morning to watch a crew uncover the school's time capsule, which was sealed into an exterior wall of Mercer Hall when the school opened in 1961.

 'It's been there for 50 years; you didn't think it would be easy, did you?' joked emcee and 1964 PaliHi graduate Rich Wilken as the crew struggled to chip away the mortar surrounding the white dedication plaque to reach the time capsule.

Once revealed, the capsule (a metal canister) was placed on a cart and wheeled into Mercer Hall. The contents were then displayed on a table for attendees to view. Among the items: a list of the classes offered during that first year, a program from the original dedication ceremony, pamphlets from the various churches and community organizations in town, a map of Pacific Palisades and coins from Security First National Bank. There were also copies of PaliHi's student newspaper, the Tideline, the Palisadian-Post and the Los Angeles Times.

Big Stone Gap, Virginia opened a time capsule yesterday that had been sealed since 1911.

A 100-year-old time capsule was opened on Wednesday as part of the centennial celebration of the C. Bascom Slemp Federal Building in Big Stone Gap, Va.