Magna Carta Back in US Archives

Carlyle Group founder returns it after buying for $21.3M
By Nick McMaster,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 4, 2008 5:35 PM CST
Magna Carta Back in US Archives
This undated photo released by Sotheby's shows a copy of the Magna Carta. (AP Photo/Sotheby's, HO)   (Associated Press)

The Magna Carta returned to the National Archives yesterday after facing an uncertain fate on the auction block last year, the Washington Post reports. The 13th-century English document, a precursor to the US Bill of Rights 500 years later, is now on permanent loan from a US businessman who bought for $21 million. 

"Today we celebrate the return to the National Archives of one of the most important documents in history," said the Archive's chief. "The principles embodied in it have endured through the centuries." David Rubenstein of the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm, donated the document after buying it at Sotheby's from previous owner Ross Perot. (More Magna Carta stories.)

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