List of people who disappeared mysteriously 1 List of people who disappeared mysteriously This is a list of people who disappeared mysteriously, and whose current whereabouts are unknown or whose deaths are not substantiated, as well as a few cases of people whose disappearance was notable and remained mysterious for a long time, but was eventually explained. Before 1800 • 71 BC – Although he was presumed killed in battle during the Third Servile War, the body of the rebel slave Spartacus was never found and his fate remains unknown. • 53 BC – Ambiorix was, together with Catuvolcus, prince of the Eburones, leader of a Belgic tribe of northeastern Gaul (Gallia Belgica), where modern Belgium is located. According to the writer Florus (iii.10.8), Ambiorix and his men managed to cross the Rhine and disappeared without a trace. • AD – Legio IX Hispana (Ninth Spanish Legion) was a legion said to have disappeared in Britain during the Roman conquest of Britain. Many references to the legion have been made in subsequent works of fiction. • 378 – Roman Emperor Valens was defeated by the Goths at the Battle of Adrianople (modern Edirne, Turkey). The body of Valens was never found. • 834 (circa) – Muhammad ibn Qasim (al-Alawi) led a rebellion against the Abbasid Caliphate but was defeated and detained. He was able to flee but was never heard from again. • 1021 – Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah (36), sixth Fatimid caliph and 16th Ismaili imam, rode his donkey to the Muqattam hills outside Cairo for one of his regular nocturnal meditation outings and failed to return. A search found only the donkey and his bloodstained garments.[1] • 1071 – Hereward the Wake was a formerly exiled Anglo-Danish minor noble rebel who led a huge revolt in the marshy region of Ely in England against the rule of William the Conqueror. Eventually betrayed by fearful local monks who led the Norman troops through secret trackways, many rebels were mutilated or executed, but Hereward escaped, never to be heard of again. • 1203 – Arthur, Duke of Brittany, an heir to the throne of England. He was supported by French nobility who did not want John of England as overlord. On 31 July 1202, while besieging his grandmother Eleanor of Aquitaine, Arthur was surprised and captured by John's barons and imprisoned at Falaise in Normandy. The following year, Arthur was transferred to Rouen and then vanished mysteriously in April 1203. • 1291 (circa) – Vandino and Ugolino Vivaldi, Genoese sailors and explorers lost while attempting the first oceanic journey from Europe to Asia. • 1412 – Owain Glyndŵr, the last native Welsh person to hold the title Prince of Wales, instigated the Welsh Revolt against the rule of Henry IV of England in 1400. Although initially successful, the uprising was eventually put down, but Glyndŵr disappeared and was never captured, betrayed, or tempted by royal pardons.[2] • 1483 – The Princes in the Tower, Edward V of England and Richard of Shrewsbury, first duke of York (9), sons of King Edward IV of England, were placed in the Tower of London (which at that time served as a fortress and a royal palace as well as a prison) by their uncle Richard III of England.[3] Neither was ever seen in public again and their fate remains unknown. • 1499 – John Cabot, Italian explorer, disappeared along with his five ships during an expedition to find a western route from Europe to Asia.[4] • 1501 – Gaspar Corte-Real, Portuguese explorer, disappeared on an expedition to discover the Northwest Passage from Europe to Asia. Two of his ships returned to Lisbon, but the third, with Gaspar on board, was lost and never heard from again.[5] • 1502 – Miguel Corte-Real, Portuguese explorer, disappeared while searching for his brother Gaspar. Like his brother, he took three ships, and as with his brother, the ship with Miguel on board was lost and never heard from again.[6] List of people who disappeared mysteriously 2 • 1526 – Francisco de Hoces, Spanish sailor, was commander of the San Lesmes, one of the seven ships of the Loaísa Expedition under García Jofre de Loaísa. It has been speculated that San Lesmes, last seen in the Pacific in late May, may have reached Easter Island or any of the Polynesian archipelagos, or even New Zealand.[7][8] • 1546 – Francisco de Orellana, Spanish explorer and conquistador, disappeared while exploring the Amazon in November. His fate remains a mystery. • 1578 – Sebastian of Portugal, Portuguese King, whose body was never found after the Battle of Alcácer Quibir; many Portuguese came to believe that Sebastian had survived the battle and would return to claim his throne. The belief arose that Sebastian could return at any moment to help Portugal in its darkest hour. • 1590 – The Roanoke colonists disappeared, becoming known as The Lost Colony, in 18 August 1590, when their settlement was found abandoned.[9] • 1611 – Henry Hudson was an English explorer and seafarer. He discovered New York Harbor for the Dutch East India Company. In 1611, mutineers set him, his son, and six others adrift in a small boat in what is now Hudson Bay. They were never seen again. • 1652 – Maurice von der Pfalz (31), brother of Prince Rupert of the Rhine. During the English Civil War, Rupert's fleet was destroyed in a terrible storm south of Puerto Rico. All ships except two were lost, among them Prince Maurice's ship Defiance. Neither he nor the ship was ever found. • 1696 – Henry Every was an English pirate who vanished after perpetrating one of the most profitable pirate raids in history; despite a worldwide manhunt and an enormous bounty on his head, Every was never heard from again. • 1788 – Aimée du Buc de Rivéry, daughter of a wealthy plantation owner on the French island of Martinique. After being sent to a convent school in France, she was returning home in July or August 1788 when the ship she was on vanished at sea. It is thought that the ship was attacked and taken by Barbary pirates. It has been suggested that she was enslaved and eventually sent to Istanbul as a gift to the Ottoman sultan by the Bey of Algiers. It is unconfirmed if she was the same person as Naksh-i-Dil Haseki, consort of the sultan. 1800 to 1899 • 1803 – George Bass (32), British explorer of Australia, set sail from Sydney for South America and was never heard from again.[10] • 1809 – Benjamin Bathurst (25), British diplomat, disappeared from an inn in Perleberg. • 1812 – Theodosia Burr Alston (29), daughter of U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr and sometimes called the most educated American woman of her day, sailed from Georgetown, South Carolina, aboard the Patriot, which was never seen again. • 1826 – William Morgan (52), resident of Batavia, New York, disappeared just before his book critical of Freemasonry was published. • 1829 – John Lansing, Jr. (75), American politician, left his Manhattan hotel to mail a letter at a New York City dock and was never seen again. • 1843 – Sequoyah (ca. 73), creator of Cherokee syllabary, disappeared during a trip to Mexico to locate isolated tribes of Cherokees who had moved there during the time of Indian Removal in the U.S. His body has never been found, although at least three different burial sites have been reported. • 1845 – Franklin's lost expedition, with more than 100 seamen, made last contact with a whaling ship before entering Victoria Strait in search of the Northwest Passage. Although the remains of some individuals were later discovered, the majority of corpses were never found, and the exact reason for their demise remains a mystery. • 1848 – Khachatur Abovian (38), Armenian writer and national public figure of the early 19th century, credited as creator of modern Armenian literature, left his house early one morning and was never heard from again. • 1848 – Ludwig Leichhardt (34), Prussian explorer and naturalist, disappeared during his third major expedition to explore parts of northern and central Australia. He was last seen on 3 April at McPherson's Station on the Darling Downs, en route from the Condamine River to the Swan River. His fate after moving inland, although investigated by many, remains a mystery. List of people who disappeared mysteriously 3 • 1849 – Sándor Petőfi (26), Hungarian poet and liberal revolutionary, one of the key figures of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. Petőfi was last seen in Transylvania during the Battle of Segesvár. Although there are many different theories and rumours about his supposed death or deportation to Siberia, neither his body nor genuine records to support the theories were ever found. • 1857 - Solomon Northup (48-49?), American author most notable for his book Twelve Years a Slave, in which he details his kidnapping and subsequent sale into slavery. Northup did not return to his family from his book-promoting tour. No contemporary evidence documents Northup after 1857. Historians are divided on whether Northup was kidnapped once again and sold back into slavery or simply died of natural causes. • 1865 – Captain James William Boyd (43), a Confederate States of America military officer, vanished after his release as a prisoner of war in February 1865, as he failed to show up for a rendezvous with his son to go to Mexico at the end of the American Civil War. Boyd’s disappearance was at the center of a conspiracy theory that he was killed in the place of John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln. • 1872 – Captain Benjamin Briggs (37), his wife Sarah Elizabeth (31), their daughter Sophia Matilda (2), and all seven crew members were missing when the Mary Celeste was found adrift in choppy seas some 400 miles (640 km) east of the Azores.