60 Fun Facts About Landmark

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

Sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi designed it and Gustave Eiffel engineered the iron frame; it was dedicated on 28 October 1886.

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

The copper skin oxidised to its familiar green within about twenty years; the tablet in her arm reads JULY IV MDCCLXXVI.

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?

The most-visited stretches were built by the Ming dynasty; despite the myth, it cannot be seen from the Moon with the naked eye.

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

Mumtaz Mahal died in 1631 giving birth to their 14th child; more than 20,000 workers built the marble mausoleum in Agra.

The Taj Mahal's four minarets were deliberately built leaning slightly outward. Why?

The complex on the Yamuna River was finished around 1653 and named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983.

Which Roman emperor began building the Colosseum in AD 72?

His son Titus finished it in AD 80; the official name, Flavian Amphitheatre, comes from their family dynasty.

What was the hypogeum of the Colosseum?

Animals and fighters waited there before being lifted into the arena; the amphitheatre held an estimated 50,000 to 80,000 spectators.

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

The citadel sits at 2,430 metres and its dry-stone walls were fitted without mortar; Hiram Bingham made it world famous in 1911.

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

A Peruvian, Agustín Lizárraga, had actually reached the site in 1902; it now draws over 1.5 million visitors a year.

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

It was the capital of the Nabataean Kingdom and its Treasury facade appears in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Which Swiss traveller rediscovered Petra for the Western world in 1812?

Visitors still enter through the Siq, a narrow gorge formed by a split in the sandstone.

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

The 30-metre Art Deco statue, finished in 1931, is built of reinforced concrete and soapstone and has been struck by lightning more than once.

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

French-Polish sculptor Paul Landowski designed it and Brazilian engineer Heitor da Silva Costa built it between 1922 and 1931.

At Chichen Itza, what shape does the shadow on the Temple of Kukulcán appear to form at the equinoxes?

The Maya city in Yucatán also has the largest ball court in ancient Mesoamerica, 168 metres long.

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 Great Bell known as Big Ben is most often said to be named after whom?

Hall was Minister for Public Works when the 13.5-ton bell was installed; it cracked during testing and still rings with the crack today.

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?

Its roof is covered in more than a million tiles laid in a chevron pattern.

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

Architect Irving Morrow chose it because it suited the landscape and stood out in fog; the bridge opened in May 1937.

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

Nineteen men owed their lives to chief engineer Joseph Strauss's movable netting.

Which four presidents are carved into Mount Rushmore?

Gutzon Borglum's 60-foot heads were meant to continue to the waist, but money ran out in 1941.

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

About 400 people worked on the mountain the Lakota call Six Grandfathers, in South Dakota's Black Hills.

The world's tallest building was known by what name during construction?

It was renamed Burj Khalifa for Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed of Abu Dhabi, who bailed Dubai out during the recession, and opened on 4 January 2010.

How tall is the Burj Khalifa?

Its 163 floors include the Armani Hotel and, at 442 metres, what is billed as the world's highest restaurant.

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

Built by Suryavarman II in the 12th century, it later became Buddhist and has appeared on Cambodia's flag since 1863.

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

Scholars link the unusual orientation to its possible role as a royal funerary temple; the name means 'City of Temples'.

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

That is about 240 km away; a 2024 study found the Altar Stone came from even farther, in north-east Scotland.

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

It also lines up with sunset on the winter solstice; building went on in phases from about 3100 BC to 1600 BC.

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

Its three-metre foundation sat in weak subsoil; work dragged on until 1372, and engineers pulled the tilt back to under four degrees by 2001.

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

It is the campanile of Pisa Cathedral, with 296 steps and seven bells tuned to a musical scale.

Gaudí took over the Sagrada Família in 1883. How much was finished when he died in 1926?

The basilica is funded only by donations and tickets; its central tower reached 172.5 metres in 2026, making it the world's tallest church.

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

Gaudí planned eighteen spires for the apostles, evangelists, the Virgin Mary and Jesus.

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

Ludwig died in 1886 before it was finished, and it opened to paying visitors within weeks; Disney's Sleeping Beauty Castle borrows its look.

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

It became a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of 1453, a museum in 1935, and a mosque again in 2020; the name means Holy Wisdom.

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?

It advertised a housing development; the last four letters came down in 1949 and the whole thing was rebuilt in steel in 1978.

Seattle's Space Needle was built for which event?

It rose in about a year to 605 feet and was briefly the tallest building west of the Mississippi.

The Gateway Arch in St. Louis is 630 ft tall. How wide is it at the base?

Eero Saarinen's stainless-steel weighted catenary is the tallest arch in the world; visitors ride to the top in tiny five-seat tram capsules.

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

The 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 in 2007.

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

He cleared a six-foot drop to the far bascule and was given a £10 bonus; the bridge is routinely confused with London Bridge upstream.

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

It came back to Berlin in 1814; 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 in 1873 for a South Australian politician; the sacred site of the Anangu has been closed to climbers since October 2019.

Hoover Dam holds back which river?

Built 1931-36 during the Depression, it created Lake Mead and cost 112 lives; Congress restored the name Hoover Dam in 1947 after years as Boulder Dam.

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

His company went bankrupt in 1889 amid disease and engineering trouble; the US finished the 82-km canal in 1914 and handed it to Panama at the end of 1999.

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

The 102-storey Art Deco tower opened on 1 May 1931 after just over a year of construction and stayed the world's tallest until 1970.

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 Great Pyramid was given honorary status as the last survivor of the ancient seven, 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?

The seven are 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?

Built around 2600 BC for Khufu from some 2.3 million blocks, it is the only ancient wonder still largely intact.

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

It also marked the centenary of the French Revolution and is nicknamed 'La dame de fer'.

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

A broadcasting aerial added in 1957 made the tower taller than its New York rival by 11 metres.

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

Ownership would otherwise have reverted to the City of Paris when Eiffel's 20-year concession expired.

Contrary to popular myth, whose troops did NOT shoot off the nose of the Great Sphinx?

Examination of the face shows the nose was deliberately removed with rods or chisels.

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

His Dream Stele refers to the statue as the solar deity Hor-em-akhet, 'Horus of the Horizon'.

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

Ferdinand and Isabella later held court there, and Columbus received their backing for his voyage at the palace.

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?

It began life as a 1703 townhouse for the Duke of Buckingham and was bought by George III in 1761.

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

Pyongyang's Arch of Triumph, modelled on the Paris original, is also taller at 60 metres.