Two ships and 129 men vanished looking for a shortcut that barely mattered

In 1845, Sir John Franklin led a well-equipped British expedition to chart the Northwest Passage. Both ships became icebound and the entire crew died of starvation, scurvy and exposure, with search parties finding only scattered remains and notes for over a century. The wrecks of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror were finally located in 2014 and 2016, after 169 years lost.

— Standard accounts of the 1845 Franklin expedition, Franklin's lost expedition — 1845–1848; wrecks found 2014 & 2016