Project AZORIAN was the U.S Central Intelligence Agency's $800 million dollar attempt to covertly retrieve a 2,500-ton Soviet submarine from the bottom of the ocean. It was a partial success. A portion of the downed submarine was recovered but that didn't stop the operation from being cancelled after a media leak in 1975. For years after that, the CIA kept a tight lid on information about Project AZORIAN. It was only in 2010, well over three decades later, that the CIA began publishing details about the operation. Io9's Mark Strauss provides a fascinating yet thorough rundown on the history of Project AZORIAN that, unlike the official government documents, won't take you hours to decipher.