59 Fun Facts About Landmark

The Statue of Liberty was a gift to the United States from the people of which country?

France gave the statue to mark the two nations' friendship: Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi sculpted it, Gustave Eiffel engineered the iron frame, and it was dedicated in New York Harbor on 28 October 1886.

What colour was the Statue of Liberty when it was first unveiled?

At her 1886 dedication the statue was the dull reddish-brown copper colour of her new skin; oxidation turned it the familiar green patina over roughly the next thirty years.

How many rays does the crown of the Statue of Liberty have?

They are usually said to stand for the seven continents and seven seas; broken chains lie at her feet.

Roughly how long is the Great Wall of China when all its sections are counted?

A 2012 Chinese state survey measured every known section, built across many dynasties, at about 21,000 km (21,196 km); the famous Ming-era stretches near Beijing are only a fraction of that.

The Taj Mahal was built by Shah Jahan as a tomb for whom?

His wife Mumtaz Mahal died in 1631 giving birth to their 14th child; Shah Jahan had the white-marble mausoleum built for her at Agra, with some 20,000 workers on the project.

Why were the Taj Mahal's four minarets built leaning slightly outward?

The minarets lean slightly outward so that in an earthquake they would fall away from the tomb rather than onto it; each stands about 40 metres tall at the corners of the marble plinth.

Which Roman emperor began building the Colosseum in AD 72?

Vespasian began the amphitheatre around AD 72 on the site of Nero's Golden House lake; his son Titus opened it in AD 80, and the name Flavian Amphitheatre comes from their dynasty.

What was the hypogeum of the Colosseum?

The hypogeum was an underground maze of tunnels and cages beneath the arena floor, added under Domitian, where animals and gladiators waited before being hoisted up through trapdoors.

Machu Picchu was built around 1450 as an estate for which Inca emperor?

Pachacuti, the ninth Sapa Inca who expanded the empire from Cusco, had the estate built around 1450; its dry-stone walls at 2,430 metres were fitted without mortar.

Which American explorer brought Machu Picchu to international attention in 1911?

Yale lecturer Hiram Bingham reached the ruins on 24 July 1911 and publicised them through National Geographic in 1913; local farmer Agustín Lizárraga had visited and left his name there in 1902.

Petra, the 'Rose City' carved into sandstone cliffs, is in which country?

Petra lies in southern Jordan, about 240 km south of Amman; it was the Nabataean capital, and its Treasury (Al-Khazneh) facade appears in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989).

Which traveller rediscovered Petra for the Western world in 1812?

Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, travelling in disguise as 'Sheikh Ibrahim', persuaded a local guide to lead him through the Siq gorge to Petra on 22 August 1812; he went on to reach Abu Simbel the next year.

Christ the Redeemer stands on top of which mountain in Rio de Janeiro?

The statue crowns the 710-metre Corcovado mountain in the Tijuca Forest; the 30-metre Art Deco figure, finished in 1931, is reinforced concrete faced with soapstone.

How wide is the arm span of Rio's Christ the Redeemer statue?

The outstretched arms span 28 metres on a statue 30 metres tall (38 with its pedestal); Paul Landowski designed it and engineer Heitor da Silva Costa built it between 1922 and 1931.

At Chichen Itza, what shape does the equinox shadow on El Castillo appear to form?

At the equinoxes the stepped corners of El Castillo cast a zigzag shadow that joins the carved stone head at the stairway's base, forming the body of a serpent, the feathered-serpent god Kukulcán.

Strictly speaking, 'Big Ben' is the name of what?

The tower itself was renamed Elizabeth Tower in 2012 for the Diamond Jubilee, and it leans slightly to the north-west.

The Danish architect of the Sydney Opera House, Jørn Utzon, did what in 1966?

The building on Bennelong Point finally opened in 1973, about 1,357% over budget in real terms; Utzon got his Pritzker in 2003.

Who officially opened the Sydney Opera House on 20 October 1973?

Queen Elizabeth II opened the Sydney Opera House on 20 October 1973; its roof carries more than one million self-cleaning Swedish-made tiles laid in chevron patterns.

What is the official name of the Golden Gate Bridge's colour?

Consulting architect Irving Morrow chose International Orange because it complemented the headlands and stood out against fog; the bridge opened to pedestrians on 27 May 1937.

Workers saved by the Golden Gate Bridge's safety net during construction formed which group?

The 19 men caught by the safety net Joseph Strauss had slung beneath the deck called themselves the Half Way to Hell Club; the net failed in February 1937 when a scaffold fell through it, killing ten.

Which four presidents are carved into Mount Rushmore?

Gutzon Borglum carved Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Lincoln, chosen for the nation's founding, expansion, development and preservation; the 60-foot heads were to continue to the waist before money ran out in 1941.

How many workers died carving Mount Rushmore between 1927 and 1941?

None of the roughly 400 workers died during the carving, even though about 90% of the rock was removed with dynamite; the Lakota call the mountain Six Grandfathers.

The Burj Khalifa was known by what name during its construction?

Built as Burj Dubai from 2004, the tower was renamed Burj Khalifa at its opening on 4 January 2010 in honour of Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed, the UAE president whose Abu Dhabi had bailed out Dubai's debts.

How tall is the Burj Khalifa?

Burj Khalifa rises 828 metres (2,717 feet) over 163 floors, the tallest structure ever built when it opened in January 2010; it houses the Armani Hotel on its lower floors.

The world's largest religious complex, in Cambodia, was originally dedicated to which Hindu god?

Suryavarman II built Angkor Wat in the early 12th century as a temple to Vishnu; an eight-armed Vishnu statue from the site stands in its western entrance, and the temple later became Buddhist.

Unlike most Khmer temples, Cambodia's great 12th-century temple faces which direction?

Angkor Wat faces west, the direction linked with Vishnu and with death, which is why scholars suggest it was Suryavarman II's funerary temple; most Khmer temples face east toward the sunrise.

Stonehenge's smaller 'bluestones' were hauled from the Preseli Hills in which country?

The Preseli Hills lie in Pembrokeshire, south-west Wales, about 225 km from Salisbury Plain; a 2024 study traced the Altar Stone even farther, to the Orcadian Basin of north-east Scotland.

Stonehenge is aligned to the sunrise on which day of the year?

The monument's axis points toward the Heel Stone and the summer solstice sunrise, and in the opposite direction to the winter solstice sunset; building went on in phases from about 3000 BC to 1600 BC.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa began tilting in 1178 while builders were on which floor?

The tower began to sink in 1178 while work was on the second floor, its three-metre foundation set in soft clay and sand; construction paused for nearly a century, and engineers reduced the lean to under four degrees by 2001.

The famous leaning structure in Pisa is actually what kind of building?

It is the bell tower (campanile) of Pisa Cathedral, begun in 1173 as the third structure of the Piazza dei Miracoli; seven bells hang at the top, reached by nearly 300 steps.

How much of the Sagrada Família was finished when Gaudí died in 1926?

Less than a quarter was built by 1926: the crypt, the apse and most of the Nativity facade, whose first bell tower was finished only in 1925; Gaudí spent his last months living in the workshop on site.

Which pope consecrated the Sagrada Família and declared it a basilica in 2010?

Benedict XVI consecrated the church and proclaimed it a minor basilica on 7 November 2010, 128 years after the first stone was laid; Gaudí's plan calls for eighteen spires for the apostles, evangelists, Mary and Jesus.

Which composer did King Ludwig II of Bavaria intend Neuschwanstein Castle to honour?

Ludwig built it as a homage to Richard Wagner, whose operas Lohengrin and Tannhäuser inspired its murals and Singers' Hall; he died in June 1886 before it was finished, and it opened to paying visitors that August.

Hagia Sophia in Istanbul was completed in 537 under which Byzantine emperor?

Justinian I had the current church built in five years by Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus, dedicating it on 27 December 537; it became a mosque in 1453, a museum in 1935 and a mosque again in 2020.

Beijing's Forbidden City was home to how many emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties?

Built 1406-1420 under the Yongle Emperor, it has 980 surviving buildings; unauthorised entry once meant execution.

When it went up in 1923, the Hollywood Sign actually read what?

The sign read HOLLYWOODLAND to advertise a hillside housing development; the Chamber of Commerce dropped the last four letters in a 1949 repair, and the whole sign was rebuilt in steel in 1978.

Seattle's Space Needle was built for which event?

It was the centrepiece of the 1962 World's Fair, the Century 21 Exposition, and was built in about 400 days to a height of 605 feet, then the tallest structure west of the Mississippi.

How wide is the Gateway Arch in St. Louis at its base?

Eero Saarinen's stainless-steel arch is exactly as wide as it is tall, 630 feet, in a weighted-catenary curve; finished in 1965, it is the world's tallest arch, and visitors ride five-seat tram capsules to the top.

What do the letters CN stand for in Toronto's CN Tower?

The Canadian National Railway built the 553-metre tower as a communications mast; it was the world's tallest free-standing structure from 1975 until the Burj Khalifa overtook it in 2007.

In 1952 a London bus driver did what when Tower Bridge unexpectedly began to open?

Driver Albert Gunter accelerated his number 78 bus and jumped the gap on 30 December 1952, landing on the far bascule with a six-foot drop; he was given a £10 bonus for his presence of mind.

Which conqueror carried off the Quadriga statue from the top of the Brandenburg Gate in 1806?

Napoleon had the Quadriga carted to Paris after defeating Prussia in 1806; it came back to Berlin in 1814, and the gate later stood sealed beside the Berlin Wall until 1989.

Which is true of the moai of Easter Island?

Almost all of the 900-plus figures were cut from volcanic tuff at the Rano Raraku quarry between about 1250 and 1500, and many are buried up to the shoulders.

Uluru was previously known by what English name?

Surveyor William Gosse named it Ayers Rock in 1873 after Sir Henry Ayers, Chief Secretary of South Australia; the Anangu's sacred site was closed to climbers in October 2019.

Hoover Dam holds back which river?

The dam spans Black Canyon of the Colorado River on the Nevada-Arizona border, creating Lake Mead; built 1931-36, it was called Boulder Dam until Congress restored the name Hoover Dam in 1947.

Which Frenchman led the failed 1880s attempt to build the Panama Canal?

Ferdinand de Lesseps, fresh from Suez, began digging a sea-level canal in 1881; malaria, yellow fever and landslides bankrupted his company in 1889, and the United States completed the 82-km canal in 1914.

The spire of the Empire State Building was originally designed to serve as what?

The 200-foot spire was designed as a mooring mast for airships, but updrafts made docking impossible and only one small blimp ever made brief contact, in September 1931; the building opened on 1 May 1931.

The Parthenon was badly damaged in 1687 when Venetian artillery hit what inside it?

The word Acropolis means 'high city'; the temple was built under Pericles in the 5th century BC.

The New 7 Wonders of the World were announced in 2007 in which city?

The winners were announced on 7 July 2007 at the Estádio da Luz in Lisbon; the Great Pyramid was given honorary status as the last ancient wonder, and UNESCO pointedly distanced itself from the poll.

Which of these was NOT voted one of the New 7 Wonders of the World in 2007?

Angkor Wat was a finalist but missed the cut; the seven chosen were Petra, the Colosseum, Chichen Itza, the Great Wall, Machu Picchu, the Taj Mahal and Christ the Redeemer.

The Great Pyramid of Giza was the tallest human-made structure on Earth for roughly how long?

Finished around 2560 BC at about 146 metres, Khufu's pyramid stayed the tallest structure on Earth for roughly 3,800 years until Lincoln Cathedral's spire topped it in about 1311.

The Eiffel Tower was built as the centrepiece of which event?

Gustave Eiffel's company built the tower as the entrance arch to the 1889 World's Fair (Exposition Universelle), held to mark the centenary of the French Revolution; it is nicknamed 'La dame de fer'.

Which New York skyscraper ended the Eiffel Tower's 41-year reign as the world's tallest structure?

The Chrysler Building, topped by its secretly assembled spire in 1929 and finished in 1930, reached 319 metres to beat the Eiffel Tower's 312; a 1957 broadcasting aerial later lifted the Paris tower narrowly back above it.

What use saved the Eiffel Tower from its scheduled demolition in 1909?

Eiffel promoted the tower as an antenna: military radio telegraphy experiments under Gustave Ferrié from 1903 made it too useful to pull down when his 20-year concession expired in 1909.

Popular myth wrongly blames whose troops for shooting off the Great Sphinx's nose?

Napoleon's troops are wrongly blamed: Frederic Louis Norden's 1737 sketches already show the Sphinx noseless, and chisel marks show it was deliberately pried off, by one medieval account in 1378.

Which pharaoh led the first documented excavation of the sand-buried Sphinx around 1400 BC?

Thutmose IV cleared the sand as a prince after, his Dream Stele says, the Sphinx promised him the throne in a dream; the stele between its paws calls the statue Hor-em-akhet, 'Horus of the Horizon'.

The Alhambra in Granada was begun in 1238 by the founder of which dynasty?

Muhammad I ibn Nasr, founder of the Nasrid dynasty, began the palace-fortress in 1238; the Nasrids ruled Granada until Boabdil surrendered it to Ferdinand and Isabella in January 1492.

How many people were executed inside the Tower of London before the 20th-century world wars?

Executions were far more common on nearby Tower Hill, where 112 took place over 400 years.

Buckingham Palace became the London residence of the monarch on whose accession in 1837?

Queen Victoria was the first monarch to live there, moving in three weeks after her accession in 1837; it began as a 1703 townhouse for the Duke of Buckingham, bought by George III in 1761.

Which 1938 Mexico City structure overtook the Arc de Triomphe as the tallest triumphal arch?

The Monumento a la Revolución, finished in 1938 around the abandoned iron dome of Porfirio Díaz's planned legislative palace, rises 67 metres, beating the 50-metre Arc de Triomphe; Pyongyang's 60-metre Arch of Triumph is also taller.