International visitors to the Louvre museum in Paris rarely paused in front of the Mona Lisa, instead hurrying to see the more well-known works. Outside of a thin slice of French intelligentsia, few thought the painting of the woman with the mysterious smile was remarkable. But one man at least thought it worth risking jailtime to steal it. Vincenzo Perugia, a small-time handyman at the Louvre hid out in his supply closet to carry out the heist that made the Mona Lisa famous.

On this day, August 21, in 1911, Perugia emerged from his supply closet, lifted the Mona Lisa from the hooks, took the canvas out of the frame, hid it under his coat and walked out. And nobody noticed.

Even as the Louvre opened the following day, the theft had gone undetected by officials. The first person to notice something amiss was a still-life painter commissioned to draw the interior of the Louvre. He thought perhaps the work was taken outside for photography (interior lighting prevented good photography inside the museum), but when the photographers told him they do not have the painting at all, the Louvre officials realized they had a theft.