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One of the most riveting discoveries in the 1990's is something that most people haven't heard of. I only learned about it within the last year -- maybe from watching something on the Discovery Channel.
From what I recall, the story went like this:
A college student was studying rock samples that seemed to be out of place on the shoreline in Texas. They shouldn't have been there; some sort of glassy material with a composition that shouldn't be able to form in recent history.
He did some further study and discovered the same type of rock in the shores of Louisiana and Florida and went to Mexico to investigate. Eventually he -- after a great deal of bureaucracy he got his hands on a specific type of satellite imaging of the area and discovered evidence of an absolutely enormous crater impact.
The crater is known as the Chicxulub Crater and has a diameter of 180 kilometers across. Since meteors quickly burn up in the atmosphere, it had to be a huge one about 10-12 miles wide with an impact equivalent of 1.5 million nuclear bombs.
And, of course, it all of the evidence is that it impacted 65 million years ago.
It is a shame that these kind of discoveries aren't better communicated WHEN they are discovered, but rather sort of filter thru after half a decade.
Obligatory wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_Crater
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