On 24 July 1911, the American explorer and Yale lecturer Hiram Bingham, guided by a local farmer Melchor Arteaga and a Peruvian sergeant, climbed a ridge above the Urubamba River in Peru and found the ruins of an Inca town, overgrown by forest and inhabited by a few farming families. Built about 1450 under the emperor Pachacuti, perhaps as a royal estate, and abandoned around the time of the Spanish conquest, Machu Picchu had never been found by the Spaniards. Bingham's reports in National Geographic made it world famous. Peru has argued over the return of objects taken to Yale.
Before and after
- 16 June 1911Founding of IBM
- 30 June 1911Birth of Czesław Miłosz
- 5 July 1911Birth of Georges Pompidou
- 16 July 1911Birth of Ginger Rogers
- 24 July 1911Hiram Bingham reaches Machu Picchu
- 25 August 1911Birth of Võ Nguyên Giáp
- 19 September 1911Birth of William Golding
- 24 September 1911Birth of Konstantin Chernenko
- from 29 September 1911 to 18 October 1912Italo-Turkish War
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- March 1900Arthur Evans begins digging at Knossos
The era
This moment belongs to the Industrial era (1760 CE to 1914 CE), steam, factories and revolutions. You can also browse everything in the 20th century.