3 October 1838
Marine iguanas found by Charles Darwin on the Galapagos Islands confirm the existence of sea-dwelling dinosaurs.
23 November 1919
Following the discovery of a 25-feet long dinosaur, Sir Harry Johnson wonders about the real and fabulous monsters still to be discovered in East Africa.
4 November 1923
Fossilised dinosaur eggs are found by an American team in Central Mongolia. One of them contains an embryo skeleton, making this a particularly exciting discovery.
5 January 1947
The Lascaux cave, outside Les Eyzies in southwest France, was discovered in September 1940 and contains some of the oldest and finest prehistoric art in the world. Inside there are more than 600 prehistoric coloured paintings of horses, deer and mammoths.
20 July 1983
A 125-million-year-old skeleton of a flesh-eating dinosaur previously unknown to science has been unearthed after its gigantic clawbone, at least half as long again as the talon on the hind foot of the ferocious Tyrannosaurus rex, was found in a Surrey claypit.
18 July 1993
Jurassic Park is reviewed by Philip French in the Observer. The film, based on a book by Michael Crichton and directed by Steven Spielberg, starts ‘dinomania’ at the movies. The ground breaking film was followed by three successful sequels, with the fifth one planned for 2018.
19 June 2001
Scientists say they have unearthed the bones of two new species of dinosaur in New Mexico, including a bizarre one that sprang from the same lineage as the super carnivore Tyrannosaurus rex but ate plants.
14 October 2015
A prehistoric rat-like mammal fossil is discovered showing fur, skin and organs. Spinolestes xenarthrosus’s 125m-year-old remains, found in Cuenca, Spain, with earlobe, lung, liver and furry pelt, is 60m years older any other mammal found with soft tissues preserved.
29 March 2016
Extinct ‘Siberian unicorn’ may have lived among humans, fossil suggests. Scientists said that creature, which looked more like a rhino than a horse, went extinct 29,000 years ago instead of 350,000 after finding skull in Kazakhstan.
