This Week In History News, Oct. 29 – Nov. 4

Published November 3, 2017

Hidden chamber found in Great Pyramid, pandas claimed to have not originated in China, art looted by Nazis placed on display for first time.

Researchers Find Hidden Space In Great Pyramid Of Giza Using Cosmic Rays

The Great Pyramids

Wikimedia CommonsThe Great Pyramids

Scientists have discovered a hidden space in the Great Pyramid of Giza.

The void sits above the pyramid’s Grand Gallery and is roughly 30 yards deep with a similar in shape to the gallery below it. The scientists do not yet know its purpose or whether or not there ever was one.

Though the discovery is important, the really interesting part is the way that it was discovered.

Read more here.

New Fossil Discovery Suggests Giant Pandas Didn’t Originate In China, But Europe

Jaw

DailyMailThe jawbone found by researchers suggests pandas originated in Europe

Though it’s China’s official national animal, the giant panda may have actually originated in Eastern Europe.

A team of researchers has discovered a 10-million-year-old jawbone of an ancient mammal while on an archeological dig site in northern Hungary.

Based on the shape, size, and structure of the teeth, they believe that the jawbone belongs to the ancestor to the modern day giant panda, which was previously believed to be confined to China.

Discover more in this report.

Renowned Artwork Looted By Nazis To Be Put On Display For First Time Ever

Street Evening

Mick Vincenz/Bundeskunsthalle Bonn/The GuardianCamille Jacob Pissarro’s Street in the Evening.

During the Nazis’ reign, they pillaged thousands of works of art from museums and private collections, either to sell them or stash them away in places unknown. Then, finally, tax investigators found a trove of some 1,500 of these works of art in the Munich home of Cornelius Gurlitt in 2012.

Gurlitt had these pieces of artwork in his home because he’d inherited them from his father, Hildebrand, one of the few men permitted to sell such art in Nazi Germany. Though the Gurlitt discovery was initially kept hidden, an expose by a German magazine in 2013 eventually brought the discovery to light.

And now, the artwork itself — including pieces from Matisse, Monet, Pissarro, and others — is now on display for the first since the Nazi era at Switzerland’s Museum of Fine Arts Bern and Germany’s Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn.

Read more at Smithsonian.

author
All That's Interesting
author
A New York-based publisher established in 2010, All That's Interesting brings together subject-level experts in history, true crime, and science to share stories that illuminate our world.
editor
John Kuroski
editor
John Kuroski is the editorial director of All That's Interesting. He graduated from New York University with a degree in history, earning a place in the Phi Alpha Theta honor society for history students. An editor at All That's Interesting since 2015, his areas of interest include modern history and true crime.