Teenagers discovered the Lascaux cave paintings

On 12 September 1940, four teenagers near Montignac in southwestern France slipped into a cavern and found one of the greatest troves of prehistoric art ever known. The trail had opened days earlier when Marcel Ravidat’s dog vanished down a hole left by an uprooted tree. Lacking the right tools, Ravidat came back on the 12th with three friends — Jacques Marsal, Georges Agnel, and Simon Coencas — to widen the shaft and climb down.

Inside they found walls crowded with bulls, horses, deer, and abstract signs, painted and engraved by Upper Paleolithic artists between roughly 15,000 and 20,000 years ago.

The cave opened to the public in 1948 but closed in 1963 as visitors’ breath and lighting bred algae and faded the pigments. Today people tour meticulous replicas while the original stays sealed, its 600 painted animals and nearly 1,500 engravings preserved in the dark.