Although accounts of an aquatic beast living in Scotland’s Loch Ness date back 1,500 years, the modern legend of the Loch Ness Monster is born when a sighting makes local news on May 2, 1933.

The newspaper Inverness Courier related an account of a local couple who claimed to have seen “an enormous animal rolling and plunging on the surface.”

The story of the “monster” a moniker chosen by the Courier editor became a media phenomenon, with London newspapers sending correspondents to Scotland and a circus offering a 20,000 pound sterling reward for capture of the beast…

read more CPB Today In History: May 2, 1933: Loch Ness Monster sighted – Claire Ann Peetz Blog.