Modern Era · South America · Exploration

1911

Machu Picchu rediscovered

1911

An American historian named Hiram Bingham, hunting through the Peruvian Andes for a lost Inca stronghold, was led by a local farmer up a steep ridge and found the ruins of Machu Picchu overgrown with jungle. The fifteenth-century stone citadel had been visible only to a few farmers for four centuries. The world now had a new wonder.