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Perhaps the most famous shipwreck in the world due to the scale of the tragedy and the fact that the ship was considered unsinkable (not to mention to a certain Oscar-winning movie), the Titanic continues to fascinate marine archaeologists and amateur explorers alike.
But there are countless other shipwrecks beneath the ocean and stranded on land around the world.
Here’s what 26 different sunken ships look like – and how they got there.
The world’s oldest intact shipwreck was discovered in the Black Sea 50 miles off the coast of Bulgaria.
Archaeologists working with the Black Sea Maritime Archaeology Project found the 75-foot ship 1.24 miles below the surface, where it is thought to have been situated for more than 2,400 years. The lack of oxygen at the ship’s depth is thought to have kept it in such good condition. It is believed to be the same boat often depicted by a Greek artist known as the Siren Painter on vases.
“This will change our understanding of shipbuilding and seafaring in the ancient world,” Professor Jon Adams, the principal investigator of the team that found the wreck, wrote in a statement to Business Insider.
The 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Baron Gautsch, an Austro-Hungarian steamboat that sank in the northern Croatian Adriatic sea, was marked on August 13, 2014.
The ship, originally used to service passenger lines, had been leased by the Austro-Hungarian army following the July 1914 outbreak of World War I to transport troops, only to run into a minefield off the Brijuni islands less than a month later. Estimates say between 240 and 390 people perished in the sinking, making it one of the biggest losses of life in World War I.
Today, the shipwreck lies at a depth of 131 feet (40 meters) off the coast of Rovinj and is said to be the most popular site for divers in the Adriatic.
The SS Maheno went from ocean liner to hospital ship to a rusty wreck on Fraser Island, Australia.
The SS Maheno was an ocean liner until it was repurposed as a hospital ship during World War I. After the war, the ship was sold to a shipbreaker in Osaka, Japan. As it was being towed to its new home in 1935, a cyclone hit and broke the line connecting the two ships. The SS Maheno drifted off to Fraser Island, where it remains today.
The skeletal remains of an unknown French sailor sit in the hull of the wreck of French explorer La Salle’s The Belle ship in the Gulf of Mexico.
Discovered on Halloween in 1996, the remains of The Belle had been underwater for 310 years before being discovered by marine archaeologists. The ship lies 15 miles offshore, 125 miles southwest of Houston. A cofferdam allowed archaeologists to expose the sea floor for research.
The Belle was one of four ships belonging to the French explorer La Salle, according to Texas A&M Today. It carried 300 settlers who were supposed to colonize the Gulf Coast area, but incorrect maps led the ships hundreds of miles astray to the coast of Texas. The Belle was abandoned in 1686 after storms caused it to sink in Matagorda Bay.
The Centaur was an Australian hospital ship sunk by a Japanese torpedo in 1943.
The Centaur had been clearly marked as a hospital ship with red crosses, but the Japanese struck it without warning during WWII, according to the Australian War Memorial. Only 64 out of 332 passengers, including crew members and nursing staff, survived after spending 35 hours on rafts waiting to be rescued.
The wreck was discovered in 2009 by a team led by David Mearns. It was mostly in one piece, though the hull was broken in at least one place.
The Panagiotis ran aground on the Greek island of Zakynthos in 1980.
The Panagiotis was smuggling cigarettes, alcohol, and possibly humans from Cephalonia to Albania in 1980 when it washed ashore on the Greek island of Zakynthos.
There are many theories as to how it got there: the ship was being chased by authorities and crashed on the beach; it hit rocks during a storm; it was abandoned and simply washed up on land; it suffered a mechanical failure.
Today, the wreck is a popular tourist attraction only accessible by boat.
The Titanic sank in 1912 after colliding with an iceberg, but the wreck wasn’t discovered until 1985.
The story of the Titanic is well-known. While sailing from Southampton, England, to New York, the ship – deemed one of the most luxurious and safe ships ever built – hit an iceberg and sank off the coast of Newfoundland, taking more than 1,500 lives.
The ship, the world’s largest at the time, was on its maiden voyage, headed from Southampton, England, to New York City.
The tragedy made headlines across the world and inspired an Oscar-winning movie starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio.
The port bow railing of the RMS Titanic lies in 12,600 feet of water about 400 miles east of Nova Scotia.
Gribshunden, a 15th century ship from Denmark, is probably the world’s best preserved late medieval ship.
Gribshunden, a contemporary of Columbus’ Santa Maria, caught fire and sank off the coast of Ronneby in Southern Sweden sometime after 1495. It belonged to King John of Denmark, who sent it as part of a mission to unify Denmark, Norway and Sweden under his rule, according to ABC News.
The 100-foot long shipwreck featured a 660-pound wooden figurehead of a sea monster, that was thought to ward off evil spirits, The Daily Mail reports.
How exactly the ship Dimitrios ended up wrecked on Valtaki Beach in Greece is still a mystery.
By some accounts, the ship was being used to smuggle cigarettes between Turkey and Italy and was set on fire to conceal the evidence. But it could have just been abandoned at a port in Gíthion, three miles north of Valtaki Beach where it washed up in 1981 and remains today.
Erebus, one of two ships from the lost Franklin Expedition in the 1840s, was discovered in Canada in 2014.
Sir John Franklin, an English Royal Navy officer, led two ships named Erebus and Terror on the Franklin Expedition in the 1840s, according to National Geographic. He and his crew were searching for the Northwest Passage, the route from the Pacific Ocean to the Arctic Ocean.
The ships disappeared in 1848 and remained lost until 2014, when a Canadian mission located Erebus. A note was found saying that Franklin died before the ships were abandoned.
The SMS Coln was a light cruiser that launched in 1916. Its armoured control tower and gun mounts are still visible, distinguishing it as a war ship.
The German war ship SMS Coln, named for the German town of Cologne, didn’t actually participate in any battles. It was one of many ships intentionally sunk at Scapa Flow after World War I to prevent the British from seizing them.
The wreck is now a protected monument and a popular destination for divers because it’s relatively intact and easy to navigate.
The Eduard Bohlen ran aground in Namibia in 1909.
The Eduard Bohlen, a 310-foot German cargo ship that ran aground while en route to Table Bay in South Africa, is famous because it appears to have just popped up in the middle of the desert. It may have been close to the shore when it first washed up in 1909, but it now sits 1,000 feet from the water.
The ship Tabarka was deliberately sunk during WWII to try and block the path of German U-Boats.
Tabarka was a French cargo ship that weighed 2,624 tons. It was built in 1909 and was intentionally sunk twice as a blockship during World War II – first in 1941 in Kirk Sound, then again in 1944 in Burrra Sound after being raised.
The Satil Wreck in Eilat, Israel, is a popular destination for high-fashion photo shoots.
The Satil Wreck in the Red Sea of Eilat, Israel, was one of 13 missile ships owned by the Israeli navy that were held in Cherbourg, France, due to an arms embargo in 1969. That year, on Christmas Eve, six Israelis disguised as dock workers successfully carried out a secret mission to bring the ships to Israel.
The shipwreck was a popular location at the 2014 Eilat Red Sea shootout, where underwater photographers from around the world competed to capture the best images.
A rotting boat in Inverness, California, has become a beloved landmark.
The Point Reyes shipwreck in Inverness, California, was going to be removed when a wetlands restoration firm acquired the land (the previous owner brought the boat ashore intended to fix it up, but never got around to it). But local photographers and visitors pushed for it to remain. There’s now parking, signage, and a trail leading to the boat.
Holes are still visible in the wreckage of Russian destroyer Moskva, which sank in the Black Sea in 1941 in a battle along the Romanian coast.
The WWII warship was discovered in 2011, about 12 miles from the Romanian shore and 148 feet underwater.
Tbe Moskva was sent to attack Romania in 1941 when ammunition onboard exploded, sinking the ship in less than five minutes.
Marine archaeologists in the Hawaiian islands found a blubber hook from the 19th-century shipwrecked whaling ship Two Brothers.
Whaling ship Two Brothers set sail from Nantucket in 1821. Its captain, George Pollard, had lost an earlier boat named Essex in a disaster that inspired the Herman Melville classic “Moby-Dick.” He lost Two Brothers as well when a storm forced him and his crew to abandon ship. The vessel was discovered 600 miles from Honolulu in 2010, along with whaling tools such as harpoon tips.
Jacques Cousteau discovered British transport ship the Thistlegorm, which lies at the bottom of the Red Sea in Egypt.
The Thistlegorm carried out three successful voyages transporting steel rails and aircraft parts before it was sunk by two German bombers on October 6, 1941. The wreck was discovered in the 1950s by Jacques Cousteau.
The wrecked Italian cargo ship Probitas was discovered by a research vessel in Albania.
The RPM Nautical Foundation’s Hercules research vessel discovered Probitas, an Italian cargo ship built in 1919, in Albania’s Ionian Sea. It was sunk by an airstrike off the coast of Santi Quaranta in 1943.
This wreck was found near Giron, Cuba, a landing site during the Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961.
Giron was a landing site during the Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961. The wrecked ship is a US landing craft that was used during the invasion. It’s upside down, but still intact.
A museum called Museo Giron is dedicated to the region’s history, and dives are easily accessible from the shore.
Archaeologists dated this bust found off the coast of Corsica in the Mediterranean Sea back to a shipwreck from the third century.
The bust was identified as Roman Emperor Philip the Arab, who ruled from 224 to 249 AD, and found off the Mediterranean island of Corsica on October 23, 2004. It’s part of a two-meter statue of the Roman emperor from a shipwreck dating from the third century.
The US sank more than 50 Japanese ships in Chuuk Lagoon, Micronesia, during World War II.
Chuuk Lagoon, Micronesia, held Japan’s Imperial Fleet until Operation Hailstone, a surprise attack in 1944 that destroyed 250 aircrafts and sank more than 50 ships. It’s now a popular spot for scuba diving.
Marine life sprouts at the site of a 4th century shipwreck off the coast of Albania.
Off the shores of Albania lies a wealth of shipwrecked treasures – ancient amphorae that carried olive oil and wine, wrecks with hidden tales of heroism and treachery from two world wars, spectacular rock formations, and marine life.
“So far RPM has documented [wrecks] from about 3rd and 4th century BC through to World War I and World War II [and] contemporary shipwrecks,” Derek Smith told Phys.org.
Indonesia has a graveyard of nearly 500 ships from Asia, Europe, and the Middle East in the Java Sea.
The Battle of the Java Sea in World War II left a graveyard of ships off the coast of Indonesia (like the above 17th century Dutch East India Company shipwreck), as well as the remains of British, American, Australian, Dutch and Japanese servicemen.
The decommissioned Navy landing ship Spiegel Grove was scuttled, or intentionally sunk, in Florida in 2002.
Since it was deliberately sunk on June 10, 2002,Spiegel Grove rested on its starboard side. But in 2005, divers discovered the ship had rolled upright, likely due to waves produced by Hurricane Dennis off the southeast coast of Cuba, according to a National Weather Service official.
At one point, it held the record for the largest ship in the world ever scuttled to become an artificial reef.
Ancient Korean porcelain from a shipwreck is seen in this photo released by the National Maritime Museum in Mokpo, South Korea.
An octopus clutching a plate led researchers to a 12th century wreck containing over 2,500 pieces of well-preserved ancient Korean porcelain.
The National Maritime Museum’s collection includes hundreds of cups, bowls, plates and other pieces that curators say were for the noble class and government officials in the Goryeo Dynasty, which ruled from 918-1392.
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