National Archives visitors know they'll find the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights in the main building's magnificent rotunda in Washington. But they won't find the patent file for the Wright Brothers' Flying Machine or the maps for the first atomic bomb missions anywhere in the Archives inventory.
Many historical items the Archives once possessed are missing, including:
-Civil War telegrams from Abraham Lincoln.
-Original signatures of Andrew Jackson.
-Presidential portraits of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
-NASA photographs from space and on the moon.
Some records have been missing for decades from the Archives' 44 facilities in 20 states and the capital, including 13 presidential libraries.
From 1969 to 1980, the patent file for the Wright Brothers Flyer was passed around multiple Archives offices,
It was returned to the Archives in 1979, and was last seen in 1980.
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