Leonard Da Vinci’s masterpiece, the Mona Lisa, was relatively unknown when first stolen. Edvard Munch’s masterpiece The Scream was better known, and more a tempting target. Munch himself made lithograph reproductions of his work, and Andy Warhol followed in that vein by making silkscreens of the work. The instant value of the work encouraged two men in Norway to burst in to the Oslo museum and take it, along with Munch’s Madonna. Although both robbers were quickly found, the works were presumed destroyed.

On this day, August 31, in 2006, a police raid in Oslo recovered the two paintings. Norwegian law enforcement would not give more details on the operations, except to say no new arrests were made and that both paintings were relatively undamaged.

The Munch Museum that contained the painting might have known the it would be a target: another version of The Scream was stolen before just ten years prior, during the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer. A group of men broke into the National Gallery, snatching the painting and leaving behind a snarky note: “Thanks for the poor security.”