5 Unexplained Mysteries in History

It is somewhat surreal how some historical events have remained completely shrouded in mystery throughout human intelligence and technology's exponential growth. Some are just unbelievably hard to comprehend, others have given way to countless conspiracy theories, and a few have even been long forgotten and torn from the pages of history.

It is also a little destabilizing to consider that most of what we deem historical mysteries have happened in the last century and a half, the latest being the disappearance of the Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 in 2014.

Here are five of the biggest mysteries in History:

1. Amelia around the globe

Amelia Earhart at the controls of her Lockheed 10E Electra before taking off from New Guinea, on July 2, 1937. She disappeared the next day — National Archives

In 1937, famous aviator Amelia Earhart attempted to fly around the world along with navigator Fred Noonan. On the last part of her flight from New Guinea to the United States, she vanished without a trace above the Pacific.

Theories behind her disappearance include her plane being forced down or shot down by Japanese military aviators around the Marshall Islands. Others claim that she secretly went back to the United States under a new government-issued identity.

It is very likely that her plane crashed due to a shortage of fuel or other technical problems and is resting some 17,500 feet underwater. To this day, no one has ever been able to pinpoint precisely where her plane crashed or if it actually did.

2. Jimmy’s rise and fall

Jimmy Hoffa was the Teamsters' ex-leader (a labor union centered in North America) and was last seen on the 30th of July 1975 outside a Detroit-area restaurant.

His disappearance has fascinated FBI agents throughout the years and would usually send them digging for his body on multiple occasions. The last Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) search dates back to June 2013 after alleged mobster Tony Zerilly claimed that Hoffa was hit with a shovel and buried alive in a field near Detroit. The three days search yielded no results.

In 1967, Hoffa was sent to prison for jury tampering and fraud, but President Nixon later pardoned him in 1971. It is known that, after getting out of prison, Hoffa's main concern was to regain power inside the Teamsters. His disappearance is linked to those efforts and the fact that the union's pension funds were controlled and influenced by the mob.

Some people have claimed that Hoffa is buried under the old Giants Stadium in New Jersey, others in a Michigan horse farm, some even went as far as to claim that he was taken to a Florida swamp and dumped as alligator food. Just like his middle name, "Riddle," his disappearance remains a mystery.

3. Cleopatra’s eternal disappearance

Many ancient writers claim that upon their deaths in 30 B.C., Cleopatra, and her lover Mark Anthony, were buried together.

Plutarch wrote that the tomb was located near an Isis temple. It was a "beautiful and lofty monument" containing "treasures made of gold, silver, ebony, emeralds, pearls, and ivory." No site that matches this description has ever been found.

In 2010, former Egyptian minister of antiquities, Zahi Hawass, conducted excavations at a Taposiris Magna site that contains many tombs dating to the era of Cleopatra's rule over Egypt. Sadly, her grave was still not found. Archeologists have noted that even if her burial place was to be discovered, it would probably be plundered and unidentifiable.

4. Oak Island’s money pit

For over two centuries, stories have circulated about Oak Island, making it one of the most famous pieces of land on earth. The island, which is located off Nova Scotia in Canada, is famed for harboring a money pit of buried treasure supposedly left there by the pirate William Kidd.

Over the years, often at very high costs, many expeditions have traveled to the island searching for the treasure, but to no avail. Even though there is no proof of the pit's existence, and no one has ever come close to finding it, people are still interested in it and continue investing time and money to find it.

The History Channel even airs a show called The Curse of Oak Island, which follows a modern-day expedition to the island.

5. Kennedy had many enemies

On the 22nd of November 1963, U.S. President John F. Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) was assassinated in what would be one of the most inexplicable events of the 20th century.

Five years later, his brother U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy (D-New York) was also shot while campaigning for president, which further fueled the conspiracy theories. In both deaths, a lone gunman was accused and executed without any public appearances.

Many questions shroud the Kennedy assassination. How could alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald shoot a moving presidential target with a mail-order rifle? Did Oswald, a Communist who had defected the Soviet Union and returned, have connections to the KGB or the CIA? Was the Mafia involved?

Was there a second shooter on the grassy knoll along Kennedy's motorcade route? And why was Oswald assassinated without ever making a public statement? Six decades after the assassination, 60% of Americans say they don't believe the government's version of events.

Whether it’s because of a lack of evidence or conspiracy theories that might actually be real, some events in our history remain a mystery simply because new evidence is unlikely to surface. History, indeed, holds a lot of secrets, leaving us only with speculation and educated guesses.