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Decades of mystery and speculation about some of history’s most enduring questions have finally been put to rest. Thanks to breakthroughs in archaeology, science, and technology, we now have clear answers to mysteries like the fate of the Franklin Expedition, the secrets behind the Moa’i statues on Easter Island, how the Pyramids were built, and much more. Dive into history’s greatest revelations with us!
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00:00If they decide to attack us, let them. Our walls can't be breached. We'll beat them back again.
00:05Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our choices for long-standing historical
00:10questions that once fueled endless debate and wildly imaginative theories,
00:14but now have been laid to rest thanks to modern science, archaeology, and a little persistence.
00:20And it was not a war, because you find not traces of a war, no traces of destruction.
00:26They left, we don't know why and where they have gone.
00:31Number 10. What happened to the Franklin Expedition?
00:34Within days, maybe hours, the underwater archaeologists will scurry to the wreck.
00:40Down there are the real secrets.
00:42In 1845, 129 British sailors vanished in the Arctic. They were searching for the Northwest Passage,
00:49a historic sea route that connected the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, providing a shorter route to Asia.
00:54The unfortunate Franklin Exposition has driven speculation for decades on the true fate of the
00:59sailors. Arguments ranged from ice entrapment to madness.
01:03Groups of six carry on your wounded back to the ships.
01:06So, eat the ice. I want every man accounted for. Go.
01:08In 2013, researchers finally pieced together a clearer picture.
01:13After being trapped in ice for two brutal winters, the crew ran dangerously low on food and supplies.
01:19The surviving men abandoned their ships and attempted a desperate trek south toward the mainland.
01:24Poor health, extreme cold, and malnutrition worked against them at every step.
01:30Ultimately, none survived, confirming a tragic but human explanation for their disappearance.
01:35The expedition that had sailed from England with such confidence and hope
01:38had become one of the biggest catastrophes in the history of exploration.
01:42Number 9. Did Anastasia escape the Bolsheviks?
01:46You mean the others were right? She was not Anastasia, after all.
01:50For nearly a century, rumors persisted that Anastasia Romanov, daughter of Tsar Nicholas II,
01:56survived her family's execution. In the time since her disappearance, Anastasia's legend had grown
02:02that she was practically an icon. The mystery behind her family's survival drew many. Imposters came
02:07forward, and the public was enthralled by the possibility of her survival.
02:11The Tsar and Tsarina, three of their daughters, and four attendants are identified.
02:16But two of the youngest royal children aren't among the dead.
02:19That hope ended in 2007, when archaeologists discovered a second burial site containing two
02:25missing Romanov children. DNA testing matched the remains to the royal family using genetic material
02:31from Nicholas II. Anastasia did not escape. She died alongside her family in 1918.
02:36While heartbreaking, the discovery finally closed one of history's most enduring royal mysteries,
02:42replacing legend with scientific certainty.
02:45What's interesting though, is that notice they both share 23. They both share this marker,
02:52which is a 33.2 repeat.
02:56Number 8. How did Richard III die?
02:58That was the most incredible result. We never expected that in our wildest dreams. Not with ancient DNA,
03:04because it can corrupt, it can mutate, but we got it, so it was incredible.
03:09History states that King Richard III died in 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth Field, ending the War of
03:15the Roses. But the how remained a mystery. Accounts of his death relied on written records and dramatized
03:21portrayals. Science provided a better picture in 2012, when archaeologists uncovered skeletal remains
03:26beneath a parking lot in Leicester. DNA analysis confirmed the body belonged to the king.
03:31I felt that it was more likely not to be Richard III than to be Richard III. But at the
03:36point that
03:36you then start to uncover that curve, those two things together then made it start to feel very
03:43likely.
03:43Further examination also revealed multiple battle injuries, including fatal blows to the skull.
03:49The wound supported historical accounts that he died fighting on foot after losing his horse.
03:53Far from what was once thought to be the mysterious disappearance of a royal,
03:57the discovery provided rare physical confirmation of a medieval king's violent end, grounding legend
04:03firmly in archaeological evidence.
04:05One of the things that you get looking at this picture is that it doesn't matter how important
04:11you have been in life, this is still where it ends and this is where it ends for all of
04:16us. And I think
04:16that's something that as a society we don't actually think about very much.
04:20Number seven. What happened to the city of Ubar?
04:38Imagine Atlantis, except in the desert. That was Ubar, long believed to be a mythical lost city. The veil of
04:45mythology didn't stop amateur archaeologist Nicholas Clapp. Partnering with NASA, Clapp searched satellite
04:51images for clues about the city. Radar data revealed ancient trade routes converging in South Oman.
04:57Excavations uncovered a fortified settlement with towers and walls.
05:01As the pattern of the settlement is uncovered, the team is even able to predict the location of buried walls.
05:08This was not the case of a mysterious disappearance. Rather, Ubar had collapsed into a massive sinkhole
05:14beneath it. The desert took care of the rest, with the sands burying the remains.
05:19The discovery confirmed Ubar's existence and explained its sudden disappearance,
05:23transforming a legendary city into a documented archaeological site with a surprisingly straightforward fate.
05:29Everything is gone now, Zarens explains.
05:34What happened to the towers? They fell down. Then everything else fell down too.
05:40Number six. What happened to Napoleon's army?
05:43What had initially been a relatively orderly crossing soon degenerated into a rout as the
05:49arrival of fresh Russian forces spread panic among the mass of stragglers and fugitives,
05:54awaiting to cross the river with the remains of the army.
05:57Winter invasions of Russia have historically never gone too well for the invaders. Napoleon was on the
06:03receiving end of this in 1812. Leading over 500,000 soldiers for the invasion, Napoleon's campaign
06:09ended with a catastrophic retreat. The defeat was believed to be due to a combination of combat,
06:14cold, and starvation. But modern science has added a new layer. Genetic analysis of soldiers' remains
06:20have revealed pathogens previously undetected. Researchers found evidence of Salmonella enterica
06:26and Borrelia recurrentis, bacteria that caused paratyphoid fever and relapsing fever. These
06:32illnesses would have weakened soldiers already struggling with harsh conditions and accelerated
06:36the army's collapse. Rather than a single cause, Napoleon's defeat resulted from a lethal combination
06:42of environment, logistics, and microscopic enemies hidden in plain sight.
06:54Number 5. Where was Troy?
07:10The Trojan War, and its host, the city of Troy, have long been dismissed as a legend from Homer's
07:16epics. That legend turned real in the 19th century, when archaeologists Heinrich Schleiman and Frank
07:22Calvert excavated a site in Hisarlik, modern-day Turkey. The dig began in 1871, and the two archaeologists
07:29uncovered nine distinct layers of settlement, each built atop the last. Perhaps we can see the way the
07:35wind was blowing in the last phase of the architecture here at Hatushash, for in Tudhalyash's day,
07:42these immense fortifications were completed, enclosing a square mile of city. Troy was not a fiction,
07:49but a real city that had been repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt. Scholars now believe that Troy 6 aligns
07:55most closely with the city described in Greek mythology and immortalized by Homer in the Odyssey.
08:01Debates still rage as to if there was an actual war, but the location and the reality of Troy
08:06is no longer in question. Most ancient cities would relocate after destruction of the city, whether it be
08:13because of war or natural causes. But Troy was an exception. The city was destroyed and rebuilt 10
08:20times during its over 5,000-year existence. Number four, who built the Mawai on Easter Island?
08:28We're standing in front of the largest Mawai on the island. I was gonna say that's a big one. Yeah,
08:34that's a big one. His name is Tetokanga, it's the Rapa Nui name, and he is 63 feet tall. Walking
08:40along the
08:41shores of Easter Island, it's hard to miss the massive, monolithic human figures. These oversized
08:46heads, also called the Mawai of Easter Island, have puzzled researchers for generations. Carved from
08:52volcanic rock at Rano Raraku, the statues were transported across the island and placed on stone
08:58platforms called Ahu. While how they were moved remains debated, researchers solved a different mystery
09:04in 2019. This statue was on its way out of the quarry, and you see how badly broken it is.
09:12Probably a couple
09:13of years of work, completely ruined and gone. A Binghamton University study revealed that Ahu
09:19locations consistently align with sources of fresh drinking water. The statues weren't just ceremonial or
09:25arbitrary. They were waypoints and essential markers for community resources. The discovery
09:30reframed the Mawai's as tied to survival, offering insight into how island communities organize
09:36themselves around limited resources. While no one theory has proven the mode of locomotion,
09:43it's a new look at what may have happened centuries ago. Number three, where did Stonehenge's giant stones
09:50come from? As well as the huge uprights, the lintels, in a way, is one of the great mysteries, how
09:56they
09:57actually got the lintels on the top. It is one of the things I get asked most by visitors, how
10:02did they
10:03get the lintels up there? If Easter Island had the Mawai, Wiltshire, England had the Stonehenge. These
10:09massive stones have inspired centuries of speculation, from supernatural theories to distant origins. In
10:162020, researchers finally confirmed their source. Using geochemical analysis, scientists traced the largest
10:22stones, known as sarsens, to west woods in Wiltshire. Stonehenge wasn't just built from scratch the way
10:30we see it looking today. It's a site that has evolved and changed dramatically over the course of 5,000
10:37years. This was about 15 miles from the monument, a modest distance at first glance. But transporting
10:42stones weighing up to 25 tons would have required remarkable coordination. It took nearly 400 years of
10:48study to settle the question conclusively. This latest reveal didn't explain exactly how the stones were
10:54moved, but it definitely highlighted their origin, grounding the monument in its local prehistoric
10:59landscape. To bring this to here, a sort of focus in a way at that time, there must have been
11:08linking between all of these areas. Number two, why did the Mayan civilizations collapse? Toward the end of the
11:16classic period, around 900 AD, most Maya cities had collapsed. Among the theories are warfare,
11:24a volcanic eruption, and, perhaps most likely, drought. From inventing the mathematical concept
11:30of zero to developing a complex and accurate calendar system, the Mayans were peerless, which made it all
11:36the more baffling that their civilization declined. Historians have long sought an answer to this mystery,
11:41and in the fateful year of 2012, an explanation arrived. Researchers from Arizona State University
11:47determined that environmental mismanagement played a key role in the Mayans' decline. Is it possible
11:53that these people originally came from the Pleiades, and that's why they encoded the Pleiades in their
12:02monuments so many times, and then eventually they returned home? Extensive deforestation altered the land's
12:10ability to regulate heat and moisture, reducing cloud formation and rainfall. This intensified natural
12:16droughts and caused soil erosion, undermining agriculture. As food supplies dwindled, populations
12:22abandoned cities, leading to widespread collapse. Rather than a sudden catastrophe, the fall of the Maya
12:29was a slow unraveling, driven by environmental strain and unsustainable practices.
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12:59Number one. How were the pyramids built? The construction site on the Giza Plateau
13:04would have received a constant supply of stone, food, and tools brought in by ships.
13:12It was an operation that would strain even a modern supply chain. The pyramids stand as one of the
13:19greatest symbols of Egyptian history and cultural heritage. Their construction has long been thought
13:24impossible without the use of advanced technology or supernatural help, but physics provided a
13:30surprisingly simple answer in 2014. Experiments showed that dragging heavy stone blocks on sleds
13:36across sand become significantly easier when the sand is slightly wet.
13:40For these unskilled workers, pyramid building was a bit like military service. This was an army mobilized
13:48from the length of Egypt, but they came to build rather than to fight.
13:52Moisture in the sand increased its stiffness and reduced friction. This prevented piles from
13:57forming in front of the sled. Ancient Egyptian wall paintings even depict workers pouring water
14:02ahead of the sleds, reinforcing the theory. No mystery machines. No aliens. Just clever engineering,
14:09accompanied by teamwork and a deep understanding of materials.
14:13So they were rock haulers from way back.
14:15Rock haulers and loving it, apparently, from what I can gather.
14:19What historical mystery should we tackle next? Let us know in the comments,
14:23hit that like button, and subscribe for more fascinating deep dives into history!
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