It took years of building a big enough particle accelerator to make a high enough energy collision to have any hope of detecting a Higgs boson. The LHC at CERN has accomplished this task. After more years of experimenting, scientists have found a particle with some of the properties that Higgs suggested the Higgs particle should have.
Could this thing accidentally create a black hole on Earth...
It takes 2 years to learn to talk, but a lifetime to learn when to shut up.