The last wild European bison was killed in the Caucasus in 1927.
In 1952 bison were released into the wild again at Białowieża, descended from about a dozen zoo animals.
The event
More amazing facts
- 1903 · 1961 · 1969 Just 58 years separate the Wright brothers' first flight from Gagarin's, and 66 from the Moon landing — some who saw the first airplanes lived to see the Moon.
- 1908 1908: the Tunguska blast flattened 2,000 km² of Siberian forest, and the Messina earthquake killed some 80,000 people.
- 1914 Passenger pigeons once numbered in the billions, but the last one, Martha, died on 1 September 1914 — a month after World War I began.
- 1922 In November 1922 Howard Carter peered into Tutankhamun's tomb; just over a month later the USSR was founded.
- 1936 The thylacine was granted protection on 10 July 1936; the last known animal died at Hobart Zoo on 7 September — just 59 days later.
- 1938 Three months after the Munich Agreement, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann in Berlin discovered the fission of uranium.