Urban Exploration Timeline This guide is aimed at chronicling the history of exploring neglected and off-limits areas as well as the history of modern urban exploration culture. Sorry this guide is still a little biased towards English-speaking countries, but so far most contributors have been English speakers. If you have any corrections or suggestions, please get in touch. Date Event Nov

1793 Philibert Aspairt, considered by some the first cataphile, becomes lost while exploring the Parisian catacombs by candlelight. His body is found 11 years later. 1861 Writing in the Brooklyn Standard, poet Walt Whitman describes his visit to Brooklyn's recently abandoned Atlantic Avenue Tunnel, which in 1844 had been built as the first subway tunnel in the world. 1904 One week after the opening of the subway system, New Yorker Leidschmudel Dreispul is killed by an oncoming train while exploring the new tunnels. The Interborough Rapid Transit company responds by erecting "no trespassing" signs throughout the system. 1916 Harry H. Gardiner, "The Human Fly", climbs 12 floors and 211 feet up the side of Detroit's Majestic Building, thereby becoming the first builderer in recorded history. 1921 In perhaps the first organized group expedition to an abandoned building, Dadaists including Andre Breton, Paul Eluard, Francis Picabia and Tristan Tzara organize a trip to the deserted and little-known church of St. Julien le Pauvre in Paris. In promoting the event, the Dadaists promise to remedy "the incompetence of suspect guides and cicerones", offering instead a series of visits to selected sites, "particularly those which really have no reason for existing". 1955 Guy Debord publishes his Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography, and develops a practice called dérive, which consists of travelling through urban environments and noting psychogeographical variations. In the decade that follows, members of the left-leaning Situationist International movement argue that society consists largely of passive spectators and consumers of packaged experiences, and suggest that individuals can shake up this state of affairs by engaging in creative play. 1959 In the US, members of MIT's Tech Model Railroad Club's Signals and Power subcommittee engage in semi-systematic excursions into steam tunnels and rooftops around campus, a practice they call "hacking". 1968 Inspired by the publications of the French resistance that operated through the catacomb network during WWII, Parisian cataphiles begin adopting pseudonyms and communicating with each other through printed paper leaflets they call tracts. 1971 Secretly entering Paris' Notre Dame cathedral at night, Philippe Petit stretches a steel cable between its towers. The next morning he crosses this improvised high wire, only to be arrested upon descending. Three years later, Petit duplicates his stunt between the twin towers of New York City's World Trade Center. 1977 The San Francisco Suicide Club, a group which lists "fringe exploration" among its many aims, is founded in San Francisco. This group eventually becomes the Cacophony Society. 1980 Eighteen-year-old rail historian Bob Diamond rediscovers Brooklyn's Atlantic Avenue Tunnel, which had been sealed up and forgotten since 1861. 1981 Responding to a challenge by a fire marshal who states "Until you climb a building, don't tell me how to perform a rescue in a high rise building", Dan Goodwin, aka "Spiderman", climbs Chicago's Sears Tower, becoming the first climber to use suction cups to climb glass windows. 1985 In Australia, Sydney drain explorer Rolf Adams begins writing the Sydney Pseudokarst ("false cave") series in the newsletter of the Sydney University Speleological Society. Jan

1986 In Australia, Melbourne cave enthusiasts Doug, Sloth and Woody found the Cave Clan, and soon begin exploring storm drains and other man-made caves as well as natural ones. Over the next decade, the Cave Clan absorbs other, smaller draining groups. May

1987 Members of the Cave Clan discover the drain they dub The Maze, arguably the best storm drain in Australia. Apr

1989 The first Annual Cave Clan Clannie Awards are held in Melbourne's ANZAC drain. Jul

1989 In Australia, Doug publishes the first issue of Il Draino, the Cave Clan newsletter. 1990 In Russia, Moscow-area explorer Vadim Mikhailov and his fellow subterranean explorers form the group Diggers of the Underground Planet. 1990 Eric Bagai publishes an essay called "The First Hackers" in a book called What I Did With My Trash: Ten Years With a TRS-80. Although not widely read, the essay has the distinction of being perhaps the earliest written explanation of what urban exploration is all about. Sep

1990 Outdoorsman Alan S. North writes The Urban Adventure Handbook, a guide in which he encourages people to climb buildings and explore the city as an accessible alternative to climbing mountains and exploring wilderness. Although not widely read, the handbook inspires a few people to begin using the term "urban adventure" in their writings. May

1991 After finding a Cave Clan sticker in a drain under Sydney, Predator forms the group's first official interstate branch, the Sydney Cave Clan. In following years, the Cave Clan founds branches in Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Perth and Hobart. 1994 The Diggers of the Underground Planet find Moscow's fabled, but officially denied, "Metro-2" subway system. The seven-level-deep system was built in the Stalin era to allow Kremlin officials to evacuate the city quickly. 1994 In the US, Dug Song and Greg Shewchuk publish the first issue of Samizdat, a zine featuring urban stunts involving tunnels and rooftops. They publish two issues before going on permanent hiatus. 1994 In Australia, the Bunker Boyz, a group dedicated to exploring abandoned bunkers and military tunnels, is founded in Sydney. Feb

1994 The newsgroup alt.college.tunnels is founded and the first message is posted. Early posters include later UE fixtures Eric Chien, Ben Hines and Matthew Landry. Mar

1995 Kevin Kelm establishes the website Abandoned Missile Base VR Tour, which quickly becomes very popular. 1996 In Russia, the Diggers of the Underground Planet officially register with the Moscow government as the "Center of Underground Research". 1996 Wes Modes puts up a website called Adventuring, archiving his writings about freighthopping and buildering. The site brings the term "urban adventure" from North's book to the web. Apr

1996 Ben Hines puts up the website College Tunnels WWW Resource Site, the official web counterpart to the alt.college.tunnels newsgroup. Sep

1996 In the US, Max Action and his fellow University of Minnesota explorers form the group "Adventure Squad", which they later rename Action Squad. Oct

1996 Ninjalicious publishes the first issue of the paper zine Infiltration. In the editorial of the first issue, he coins the term "urban exploration" and introduces the idea of exploring off-limits areas of all types as a hobby. Nov

1996 The newsgroup uk.rec.subterranea is founded and the charter is created. 1997 With the third issue of their magazine Jinx, long-time New York City explorers Lefty Leibowitz and L.B. Deyo begin featuring articles on urban mountaineering and exploration. Jinx goes online at planetjinx.com (later jinxmagazine.com). Apr

1997 Ninjalicious establishes an Elevator Action-themed website for Infiltration and links his site to five or six other sites he finds related to exploring storm drains, college steam tunnels or abandoned buildings. Jul

1997 In response to increasing spam on the newsgroup alt.college.tunnels, Paul Allen Rice establishes a mailing list where vadders can discuss college tunnels and any manmade underground structures, the Underground list. Aug

1997 Melbourne explorer Gunny establishes a website for the Cave Clan and annoys some members of the Melbourne Cave Clan by publishing its location lists. Following this controversy, Gunny and Silk go independent and establish the website of the Melbourne Drain Team. Sep

1997 Berliner Unterwelten, or the Berlin Underground Association, is founded in Germany. Sep

1997 Ninjalicious establishes the infiltration-l mailing list, which is devoted to exploration of off-limits areas both above and below ground. Sep

1997 In Scotland, the Milk Grate Gang forms with the purpose of exploring the Glaswegian underworld, and places its adventures online at Subterranean Glasgow. 1998 Explorer and photographer Stanley Greenberg publishes Invisible New York: The Hidden Infrastructure of the City. Feb

1998 Gunny and Lord Emor of the Melbourne Drain Team establish the Draining webring. In May, Emor hands the ring over to Ninjalicious, who expands the ring's scope by renaming it the Urban Exploration Ring. The renamed ring quickly expands from six to eighteen websites across Australia, Canada, the US and Britain. Sep

1998 Wanting to conceal his identity from some people who are harrassing him, Gunny adopts the persona of a New York-based science fiction author named "Johnathan Littell". Later shedding this identity and adopting the alias Panic, the Melbourne-based explorer apologizes for having mislead people about his identity, explaining "This was done more out of self preservation and an attempt to continue to take an active part in the UE community than an attempt to hurt, mislead or deceive people." Dec

1998 Julia Solis establishes a Dark Passage website. Dec

1998 Yahoo stops lumping 30+ exploration sites into the category Recreation:Cool Links:Recreation and Sports, and creates a new category, Recreation:Hobbies:Urban Exploration. Dec

1998 German explorers Dietmar and Ingmar Arnold, of Berliner Underwelten, publish Dunkle Welten, a German-language guide to the worlds beneath Berlin. Jan

1999 Ninjalicious establishes the Infilnews mailing list and sends out the first edition of a semiannual e-mail newsletter covering events of interest to urban explorers. Mar

1999 Paul Allen Rice creates the domain Urbanexplorers.net, and a website containing many useful links for college tunnelers goes online there shortly afterwards. Apr

1999 Julia Solis and her explorer friends stage an event called "Dark Passage" in the subway tunnels beneath New York City. Jun

1999 The Sydney Cave Clan holds the first Golden Torch Awards awards night at the Glebe Island Silos. Aug

1999 Members of the Sydney Cave Clan publish the first issue of the zine Urbex. They publish three more issues on paper before switching to an electronic format. 2000 Lefty and L.B. found the Jinx Athenaeum Society, which convenes in New York City to hear speeches and debates of interest to urban explorers and others. 2000 Eku Wand and Dietmar Arnold, of Berliner Unterwelten, release Berlin im Untergrund: Potsdamer Platz, an interactive multimedia CD offering tours of subterranean Berlin. Aug

2000 Minneapolis-area explorers from Mouser's Under-MN mailing list convene for the first Mouser Week, a weeklong festival of group exploration. Aug

2000 Canadian explorer Mr. Sable creates a public MSN group and invites members of the Urban Exploration Ring to sign up in order to exchange messages, links and photos. The group, called Urban Explorers, quickly grows to include a membership of more than 100 explorers from Australia, Canada, the UK, the USA, Ireland, France and Holland. An Australian subgroup, Urban Exploration Australia, is also popular for a time, until it is censored by Microsoft. Oct

2000 Max Action puts up a website for Action Squad. 2001 Julia Solis stumbles upon an unmoderated DMOZ category called "Urban Speleology", which she adopts and adapts to urban exploration. Aug

2001 Max Action finds a vast maze of interconnected utility tunnel systems under Minneapolis and St. Paul that he dubs the Labyrinth, and over the next two years, Action Squad thoroughly explores (and Jim Hollison thoroughly maps) the system. Sep

2001 Terrorists attack the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, and the US and the world go on high alert. Jan

2002 Ben Brockert establishes a UE News section of his website, but abandons it a few weeks later due to lack of user participation. Mar

2002 Daniel Joseph Konopka, who had been in touch with the Chicago Urban Exploration group, is arrested after being found with hazardous chemicals in the tunnels under the University of Illinois at Chicago; he is subsequently sentenced to 13 years in prison for having stored cyanide in Chicago's subway tunnels. Konopka tells authorities he found the cyanide while engaged in urban exploration at an abandoned warehouse in Chicago. Spring

2002 New York City's LTV Squad, a graffiti-turned-exploration crew, holds its first spring invitational, gathering 30+ explorers for a day of exploring and socializing in Brooklyn. Summer

2002 Explorers establish stronger international ties when Canadian Agent K visits Australia, American Jim Hollison and various members of the Australian Cave Clan visit Europe, and Australians Gilligan and Panic independently visit both Europe and North America. Aug

2002 Julia Solis and her collaborators in New York City form Ars Subterranea, a society populated by artists, architects, historians and urban explorers. Sep

2002 Julia Solis publishes New York Underground: Anatomie Einer Stadt, a German-language book about subterranean New York City. Oct

2002 When 922 audience members are taken hostage by Chechen rebels during a performance at a Moscow theatre, Vadim Mikhailov, of the Diggers of the Underground Planet, leads the Russian authorities into the theatre by a little-known underground route. Nov

2002 Ars Subterranea holds its inaugural event, an exhibit on Underground New York, in Brooklyn's Atlantic Avenue tunnel. Nov

2002 Avatar-X launches the website Urban Exploration Resource, and creates a message forum that can be shared across multiple websites. Several other Canadian websites soon begin to use UER's message board system. Before long, UER replaces the MSN message board as the net's largest and most active exploration message board. Mar

2003 Doug launches a full-colour publication called The Cave Clan Magazine and prints 100 copies of the premiere issue. Mar

2003 Max Action records and releases versions one and two of "UE Favorite Things", a song which quickly becomes an anthem of sorts. Apr

2003 The 15th Annual Cave Clan Clannie Awards are held. Apr

2003 Explorer and photographer Stanley Greenberg publishes Waterworks: A Photographic Journey Through New York's Hidden Water System. May

2003 Frustrated by infighting between various branches of the Cave Clan, and particularly the increasing independence of the large and important Sydney branch, Doug quits as editor of Il Draino and hands the publication over to Beanz. Jul

2003 Jinx releases its book, Invisible Frontier: Exploring the Tunnels, Ruins & Rooftops of Hidden New York. Aug

2003 An unidentified satirist debuts the website of the Secret Urban Exploration Ninja Mafia, thoroughly mocking the boasting and illiteracy that have become common on some exploration websites and message boards. Oct

2003 Explorers John Gray and Mark Gerrity publish Abandoned Asylums of New England, a photography book containing more than 220 images of New England asylums. Apr

2004 The owners of the site Urban Exploration Alberta take most of their content offline after learning that information on their site was used by criminals. May

2004 Webmasters White Rabbit, of Underground Ozarks, and Mike Dijital, of Abandon Spaces, take their sites offline after being separately threatened with trespassing charges based on information on their sites. June

2004 Roughly 65 explorers from across North America and a couple from beyond converge on Toronto for a successful four-day exploration convention trickily-titled Office Products Expo 94. July

2004 A smaller group of explorers from the US and Canada meet up in Rhinebeck, NY, for a weekend of abandonment exploration dubbed NEOPEX (North East Office Products Expo). Dec

2004 Roughly a dozen explorers convene in Orlando, Florida to attend a successful three-day event called Sexfest (South Eastern eXploration Festival). Jul

2005 Explorers from the world over unite again for a weekend of exploration and seminars in Montreal, Quebec, organized by the fine people at Urban Exploration Montreal. This year's event is, naturally, named Office Products Expo 95. Aug

2005 Ninjalicious publishes Access All Areas: a user's guide to the art of urban exploration, a more than 240-page book full of UE knowledge, advice and theory. Aug

2005 Ninjalicious, founder of Infiltration zine and infiltration.org, dies of cancer in Toronto at the age of 31.

For a longer-term and more fun version of this history, check out Max Action's delightful Rambling Essay on the Past, Present and Future of Urban Exploration.