On July 2, 1966, drillers at Camp Century penetrated the Greenland Ice Sheet for the first time and kept going. As the Cold War raged, they collected more than 3 meters of frozen soil from beneath the ice sheet. Almost 60 years later, dozens of scientists from the United States and Europe are now analyzing that frozen soil using techniques unavailable and unimaginable in the 1960s. We are deciphering the history preserved in this unique archive of long-vanished landscapes and climates of the past. This work informs our collective future as the Earth warms and the Greenland Ice Sheet melts.