Discovery Facts

In 1963, a man found a mysterious room behind a wall in his home that lead to a huge underground city that once housed up to 20,000 people, complete with schools, livestock pens, and food stores, dating back over a millennium.

7,000 new insect species are discovered every year.

A female photographer in the 50s took tens of thousands of pictures and remained remained unknown until her death. She is now considered one of the most important street photographers ever.

A couple that were out walking on their property in Sierra Nevada discovered a canister containing $10 million in gold coins.

Luigi Lo Rosso, a junk dealer from Capri, found a rolled-up canvas in a villa cellar in 1962 and hung it in his family’s living room. His wife called it “horrible.” Experts now believe it may be a genuine Picasso - a portrait of Dora Maar created between 1930 and 1936 - and have valued it at up to €6 million.

Shackleton's ship Endurance was found in 2022, 3,000 meters down on the Antarctic seafloor - lost since 1915. The name still stood out across the stern. The freezing water had kept the wooden hull almost perfectly preserved for 107 years. Shackleton lost the ship in the ice - but all 28 men survived a 22-month ordeal and made it home.

Jean-Pierre Osenat was doing a routine appraisal of a Paris townhouse when he noticed a painting on the wall. It turned out to be a Rubens masterpiece - a 1613 work called Christ on the Cross that had vanished for over 400 years, known to the art world only through engravings. Authenticated by microscopic paint analysis, it sold for $2.7 million.

Miners in Mexico found a hidden cave in 2000 with the largest crystals on Earth. The crystals were white gypsum beams up to 37 feet long and 3 feet wide. The heat inside hit 136 degrees with near-total humidity. Without a cooling suit, a person can die within about 10 minutes. In 2015, the mine flooded and sealed the cave shut.

Lee Berger found 1,550 fossils of an unknown human species in South Africa's Rising Star cave. The only way in was an 18-cm gap. He couldn't fit. He posted on Facebook for scientists slim enough to squeeze through. Six women answered. They crawled in and pulled out Homo naledi - a lost branch of humanity. Eight years later, Berger lost 25 kg and finally made it in himself.

Thutmose II's lost tomb was found near Luxor in 2025. It was the first king's tomb found in the Theban hills since King Tutankhamun's - over 100 years earlier. Ancient floods damaged it and priests removed most of its contents. But fragments of the blue ceiling with its yellow stars survived 3,500 years. Those stars are only found in kings' tombs.

Marcel Ravidat was 18 when his dog went down a hole near Montignac, France. He climbed in after it, then returned days later with three friends. They found cave walls covered in painted animals: over 600 images made some 17,000 years ago. One black bull stretches over 17 feet across the rock. Visitors' breath damaged the paintings so badly the cave closed in 1963. A replica nearby lets people see it today.

In 1898, a teenage ranch hand named Jim White rode the New Mexico desert at dusk and saw smoke boiling out of the ground. There was no fire, just bats pouring from a hole. He built a wire ladder and climbed down. That hole is now Carlsbad Caverns' Natural Entrance. Every evening from April through October, a ranger still seats visitors on stone benches there. Several hundred thousand bats spiral out at sunset.

A 9-year-old found a 15-million-year-old megalodon tooth on Christmas morning. She wants to be a paleontologist.

In 2019, scientists extracted a complete human genome from a 5,700-year-old wad of chewed birch pitch found at Syltholm, Denmark. It belonged to a young woman with dark skin, dark hair, and blue eyes. They even recovered DNA from her last meal: duck and hazelnuts.

A California couple were walking their dog in February 2013 when the woman spotted a rusty tin can sticking out of the soil on their property. They dug it out - and found it packed with 19th-century gold coins. Eight canisters total, containing 1,427 Gold Rush-era coins dated 1847-1894. Face value: $27,980. Market value: $10 million.