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 salvage award ($225 million requested by RMS Titanic Inc.). On 24 March 2009, it was revealed that the fate of 5,900 artefacts retrieved from the wreck would rest with a U.S. District Judge's decision. The ruling was later issued in two decisions on 12 August 2010 and 15 August 2011. As announced in 2009, the judge ruled that RMS Titanic Inc. owned the artefacts and her decision dealt with the status of the wreck as well as establishing a monitoring system to check future activity upon the wreck site. On 12 August 2010, Judge Rebecca Beach Smith granted RMS Titanic,