Timeline of United States discoveries exhaustive searching, it was in 1984 that world headlines were made when American archeological explorer Barry Clifford found the only solidly-identified pirate shipwreck ever discovered, the "Whydah". Two-hundred thousand artifacts and sunken treasures were discovered in the shipwreck as well. 1985 Puck 1985 RMS "Titanic" wreckage The RMS "Titanic" was an "Olympic" class passenger liner owned by the White Star Line and was built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, in what is now Northern Ireland. At the time of her construction, she was the largest passenger steamship in the world. Shortly before midnight on April 14, 1912,
Wreck of the RMS Titanic which will follow ours." However, within only two weeks of the discovery, a British insurance company claimed that it owned the wreck, and several more schemes to raise it were announced. A Belgian entrepreneur offered trips to "Titanic" for $25,000 a head. Spurred by Ballard's appeals for the wreck to be left alone, North Carolina Congressman Walter B. Jones, Sr. introduced the RMS Titanic Maritime Memorial Act in the United States House of Representatives in 1986. It called for strict scientific guidelines to be introduced to govern the exploration and salvage of "Titanic" and urged the United States Secretary of