Chronology

Ca. 1200 Founding of what became the Inca dynasty.

1438 Pachacutec becomes Sapa Inca and begins his territorial expansion. He launches a massive building program, which will include the construction of Machu Picchu, the Koricancha sun temple in Cusco and the Capac Ñan.

1492 Christopher Columbus lands at what is now the Bahamas.

1513 Vasco Nuñez de Balboa sees the Pacific.

1519 Hernán Cortés conquers the Aztec empire in Mexico.

1522 A Spanish explorer reports the existence of a land known as Birú, later to be called Peru.

1527 First meeting between Francisco Pizarro and the Incas takes place in northern Peru.

1527–28 Emperor Huayna Capac dies unexpectedly. His son Huascar takes over but is opposed by another of Huayna Capac’s sons, Atahualpa. Five years of civil war ensue.

1532 Atahualpa wins the Inca civil war. Pizarro captures Atahualpa. Atahualpa offers a huge ransom for his freedom.

1533 Atahualpa is executed. Manco is crowned Inca by Pizarro.

1536 Manco leads an attack against the Spaniards in Cusco.

1537 Manco flees his rebel headquarters at Ollantaytambo for Vitcos. When Vitcos is sacked by the Spaniards, he escapes to the new jungle capital of Vilcabamba.

1539 Vilcabamba is sacked for the first time. Manco’s queen Cura Ocllo is executed by Pizarro.

1541 Francisco Pizarro is murdered in Lima.

1544 Manco Inca is murdered by Spanish refugees at Vitcos. He is succeeded by his sons Sayri Tupac and Titu Cusi.

1570 Spanish friars burn the temple complex near the White Rock of Vitcos.

1572 The Spaniards declare war on the rebel Inca state. Vilcabamba is sacked and burned for a second time. Tupac Amaru, the last Inca emperor, is captured in the jungle and returned to Cusco, where he is executed in the Plaza de Armas.

1781 Would-be revolutionary Tupac Amaru II is executed in Cusco.

1800s French explorers visit Choquequirao, sparking the legend that it is the site of Vilcabamba.

1847 William Prescott publishes The Conquest of Peru.

1895 A new mule road is completed alongside the Urubamba River, passing below Machu Picchu.

1906–07 Hiram Bingham makes his first visit to South America, through Venezuela and Colombia.

1908–09 Bingham attends a scientific conference in Chile, and stays on to make his initial visit to Peru, including Cusco. He visits the ruins of Choquequirao, believed by some to be Vilcabamba—the Lost City of the Incas.

1911 Bingham’s annus mirabilis. In one summer as the leader of the Yale Peruvian Expedition, he discovers Machu Picchu, Vitcos and Espritu Pampa. He leaves Peru uncertain if he has actually found Vilcabamba.

1912 Bingham returns to Peru, cosponsored by Yale and the National Geographic Society.

1913 The publication of Bingham’s first National Geographic story makes stars of both Machu Picchu and its discoverer. Bingham begins to formulate his theory that Machu Picchu is Vilcabamba.

1914–15 Bingham’s third trip to Peru, during which he finds the Inca Trail. He leaves under a cloud of suspicion.

1948 Bingham publishes Lost City of the Incas, makes a final return trip to Machu Picchu.

1956 Bingham dies.

1964 Gene Savoy explores Espiritu Pampa, uncovers new evidence that it is the true Vilcabamba.

1981 Raiders of the Lost Ark is released, raising questions about which real-life explorers inspired Indiana Jones.

1982 Yale researchers Richard Burger and Lucy Salazar publish their theory that Machu Picchu had been the royal estate of Pachacutec.

2008 Paolo Greer publishes his article “Machu Picchu Before Bingham,” which concludes that the prospector Augusto Berns likely looted Machu Picchu’s artifacts long before Bingham arrived.

2011 100th anniversary of Hiram Bingham’s first trip to Machu Picchu.