With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Library map thief gives himself up (Spain)

The mystery thief of some of the rarest maps in the world has been unmasked after a worldwide investigation by Spanish police that led them to Britain, Australia, America and Argentina.

Spanish detectives flew this weekend to Buenos Aires after a man there admitted to stealing up to 19 valuable maps from a collection held at the Spanish National Library, some more than 500 years old.

The discovery in August that the cream of the Spanish cartographic collection had been stolen sparked a political storm that cost Rosa Regàs, the Catalan writer who was head of the National Library, her job. It also led to accusations against the Government that it had been cavalier with the nation’s priceless historical artefacts.
Read entire article at Times (UK)