[The 70th anniversary of discovery of tick-borne encephalitis. A path to true history].

The discovery of tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) in the Far East of the USSR in 1937 is marked by investigators' heroism and tragedies--diseases in the members of the expedition and deaths when the first vaccine was designed in 1938. The head of the expedition L. A. Zilber and two specialists were arrested on a charge of subversive activities--spreading Japanese encephalitis in the guise of discovering a new virus. The paper presents the archival records and recollections of the members of the far-eastern expedition, which specify the history of TBE discovery.