The original article revealing Machu Picchu to the world

The explorer who re-discovered Machu Picchu

If there was a real-life inspiration for Indiana Jones, it may well have been Hiram Bingham, the Yale University historian who set out to find the rumored “lost city” of the Inca. This short feature from the BBC’s History magazine explains how this son of missionaries brought international renown to the site and to himself. In the process, he sparked an international feud that would last more than a century.

The US senator who found a city in the sky

Dr. Hiram Bingham, a Yale graduate and explorer, is credited with rediscovering Machu Picchu in 1911. Financially supported by his marriage to the Tiffany jewelry heiress, Bingham ventured into the Peruvian Andes in search of the lost Inca city of Vilcabamba. Instead, guided by local farmer Melchor Arteaga, he stumbled upon the awe-inspiring ruins of Machu Picchu.

Machu Picchu before it was a tourist attraction

The Machu Picchu we know today is familiar thanks to its neatly manicured plazas, lovingly preserved stone buildings, and ever-present hordes of tourists. But that’s not what Hiram Bingham saw when Melchor Arteaga led him to the site in 1911. Back then, it lay covered by centuries of tropical overgrowth.

Yale returns Inca artifacts to Peru

From the time he came upon Machu Picchu in 1911, Hiram Bingham began removing artifacts and human remains from the site and bringing them back to Yale University. Yale's Peabody Museum held them for 100 years, despite demands by the Peruvian government and the public that they be repatriated. Finally, in 2011, Yale returned thousands of items, including ceramics, jewelry and human skeletons.

The unsolved mysteries of Machu Picchu

Who lived there? How did they get all that granite up there? Who were the 100 bodies found buried here, and why did some of them have elongated heads? Explore eight of Machu Picchu’s unanswered questions while scrolling through panoramic, clickable street-view images of the site, in this guide from Google Arts and Culture.

Pompeii's buried secrets are still being revealed

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A conversation with Wikipedia’s cofounder

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Pulitzer left $2M to Columbia to establish the Pulitzer Prize

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Explore the archaeological treasures of Pompeii, the city buried under volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE.

When Niagara Falls stopped flowing

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Read an early piece of journalism on country music

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The unexpected origin story of the snow globe

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4-minute overview of gold mining in the Amazon rainforest

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National Geographic's list of best places to visit in 2023

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That time two journalists raced around the world in 80 days

In 1889, Journalist Nellie Bly, née Elizabeth Jane Cochran, set sail on a journey around the world to compete with Phileas Fogg, the protagonist of the 1872 fiction novel "Around the World in Eighty Days." This short video explains how competing...

David Attenborough reflects on some of his most moving natural encounters

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The idea for the Federal Reserve was conceived in secret in 1910—with bankers donning duck hunt gear for disguise while traveling to a remote country club on Georgia's Jekyll Island

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A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

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In 2018, 26-year-old missionary John Allen Chau was killed by tribesmen after attempting to reach and evangelize on India's isolated North Sentinel Island

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A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

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In 2019, a laptop loaded with six of the worst malware in history and described as 'an exhibit of historical weaponry' sold for $1.3M.