historical landmarks
Mount McKinley Or Denali: The Naming Controversy Of Nor...
August 13, 2021
Visitors take in the view of Denali, formerly known as Mount McKinley, on September 1, 2015 in Denali National Park, Alaska. (Lance King/Getty Images) At 20,3...
How The Hollywood Sign Became An Icon
July 7, 2021
A sign advertises the opening of the Hollywoodland housing development in the hills on Mulholland Drive overlooking Los Angeles, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, circa 1924. (Und...
Inside The Church Of Bones Made Of 40,000 Departed Huma...
June 9, 2021
The Sedlec Ossuary, better known in popular culture as the Church of Bones, is a small chapel located in the town of Kunta Horra in the Czech Republic. As w...
Times Square History: The Weird Story Of The Evolution ...
December 30, 2020
(Byron Company/Wikimedia Commons) Anyone who visits New York City is bound to make their way to Times Square, the mecca of tourism in the Big Apple. Once the ...
Gavle Goat: The Swedish Traditional Display That Vandal...
December 20, 2020
(Stefan/Wikimedia Commons) Every year in Gävle, Sweden, the locals celebrate Christmas by erecting the Gävle Goat, a massive version of the Swedish yule goat....
History Of The White House: Facts And Trivia You Didn't...
November 4, 2020
A view of the south facade of the White House in Washington. (Brooks Kraft LLC/Corbis via Getty Images) When Was The White House Built?George Washington recog...
Los Pobladores: The 44 Mexican-Indigenous People Who Fo...
September 4, 2020
Los Angeles is a city of constant reinvention. There's the past that the city remembers and the past that the city rewrites until the real story is forgotten...
The Devil's Footprint: A German Cathedral's 600-Year-Ol...
August 10, 2020
Frauenkirche, with its twin towers, stands out along the Munich skyline. circa 1960. (Photo by Pictorial Parade/Archive Photos/Getty Images) Inside a massive ...
Tignon Laws Forced Black Women To Cover Their Hair
July 25, 2020
Black women often face discrimination and hardship on account of their "distracting" hair, and it turns out it's been happening since their earliest days in the U.S....
Big Ben's First Ring: 1859's Debut Of The Global Landma...
May 31, 2020
Visitors from around the world travel to London to see Big Ben, one of the greatest and most well-known artifacts in the Western world. Rivaling the Empire S...
Mount Rushmore Construction Pictures: History, Facts, &...
November 14, 2019
The Mount Rushmore National Memorial in Keystone, South Dakota was carved into granite in the Black Hills. Ninety percent of the carving involved the use of dyn...
Niagara Falls From Above: A Bird's Eye View
September 13, 2019
If you have ever visited Niagara Falls, then you can attest to the splendor of the tremendous rush of water that pours over this spectacular series of waterfalls that strad...
The "Portal to Hell" In Hawaii
September 6, 2019
This image may look like it was taken on the set of a Hollywood movie about demons from the underworld. You can almost—but not quite—make out the shapes of twisted, tormented souls who ...
The Little-Known History Of North Sentinel Island, Unto...
August 18, 2019
It is hard to fathom that in today's modern world—with space travel, amazing medical breakthroughs, and smartphones in every pocket—that there are still trib...
Christ The Redeemer: The Youngest Of All The Seven Wond...
August 17, 2019
A helicopter flies next to the Christ the Redeemer statue, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on 06 Aug 2016. Source: (Photo: Soeren Stache/dpa | usage worldwide (Photo by ...
Devil's Bridges of Medieval Europe: Where Architecture,...
August 16, 2019
The bridge Ponte della Maddalena, Bridge of Mary Magdalene, also Ponte del Diavolo or Bridge of the devil, is crossing the river Serchio. Source: (Photo by Fran...
The Colossus at Rhodes
August 6, 2019
Situated along the southern boundary of the Aegean Sea, the island of Rhodes is widely known for its beaches, charming towns, and abundance of shops and restaurants catering to tourists from ar...
Central Park, Elitism, and the Destruction of Seneca Vi...
July 28, 2019
Aerial view of Manhattan looking south over Central Park July 2007 in New York City. AFP PHOTO/Stan HONDA. Source: (Photo credit should read STAN HONDA/AFP/Gett...
Hy-Brasil, The Irish Atlantis
July 13, 2019
This is probably what Hy-Brasil looks like with the morning mists rising over small loch, but this is the real-life Trotternish, Island of Skye, Scotland. Source: (Photo by: Photofusion/Uni...
Rome's Other Colosseum
July 12, 2019
Rome’s ancient Flavian Amphitheater, the Colosseum, is one of the most recognizable buildings in the world. It has stood for almost two thousand years, and stories of events that unfolded there...
The Story of Notre Dame de Reims
July 11, 2019
The fire at the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris in the spring of 2019 shocked people around the world. Centuries of history, priceless art, and countless religious artifacts were damage...
The Suez Canal
June 15, 2019
The Suez Canal, bridging the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, is one of the most important engineering feats in all of human history. This 120-mile trench dug through the Egyptian Isthmus of Suez has cha...
The Short Lived Democratic Republic of Georgia
June 14, 2019
The Republic of Georgia, a small country roughly the size of West Virginia sandwiched between Russia and Turkey, is one of the new states that emerged after the dissolut...
Mount Etna: Europe’s Fire-Breathing Monster
June 13, 2019
The Etna Volcano erupts from the south-east crater, spewing lava and ash on December 22, 2018 in Catania, Italy. Source: (Photo by Fabrizio Villa/Getty Images) In recent d...
What You Didn’t Know About Big Ben
June 10, 2019
Big Ben … that big clock high on a tower is a symbol of London. This 160-year-old landmark keeps Londoners punctual and provides a backdrop for iconic tourist pics, but beyond tha...
What You Didn’t Know About Fort Knox
June 1, 2019
We all know from history class, as well as TV shows, movies, and books, that all of America’s gold is kept in a vault at Fort Knox. This bullion bunker in the heart of Kentucky,...
Istanbul's Hagia Sophia: The History Of Its Architectur...
May 26, 2019
The Hagia Sophia is one of the most historically and architecturally significant buildings in all of human civilization. Originally built as a Christian basi...
Hairpin Insanity: San Francisco’s Famous Lombard Street
May 11, 2019
San Francisco is home to many iconic sites—the Gold Gate Bridge, Fisherman’s Wharf, Chinatown, and the townhouse from Full House. Add to that Lombard Street, ...
Babylon – The Rise And Fall Of It
March 30, 2019
The city of Babylon was once a thriving city with magnificent structures and palaces. One of the key attractions of Babylon was the Hanging Gardens. The Hanging Gardens is conside...
The Most Isolated Town In The United States
March 14, 2019
Canadian tourists enjoying sunset at Point Roberts beach in this photo from 1959. Source: (Photo by Carl Mydans/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images) Where is the most i...
The Liberty Bell’s Famous Crack
February 27, 2019
The Liberty Bell is one of our most endearing national symbols. However, as every American kid quickly learns, that symbol is broken. The famous bell and its even more famous crack r...
Blazing The Oregon Trail
January 20, 2019
The Westward Trail circa 1840: A map showing the westward trail from Missouri to Oregon. (Photo by MPI/Getty Images) In 1971, Minnesota Education Computing Consortium released a computer game ...
How 1885 Crowdsourcing Saved the Statue of Liberty
January 11, 2019
New York City had a big problem. France had gifted the United States with the Statue of Liberty to erect on an island in New York Harbor. It was a gracious gift and ...
Creating the Appalachian Trail, America’s Footpath
January 4, 2019
A hiker hikes along a section of the Appalachian Trail on Sunday, August 6, 2017. Source: (Staff photo by Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images) Outdoo...
Life In Santa Claus, Indiana, The Most Christmas-y Town...
December 21, 2018
Santa Claus may reside in the North Pole, but there is no other place in the United States that is quite as Christmas-y as Santa Claus, Indiana. This small v...
Real Places That Are Really Creepy
November 21, 2018
The world is full of places which are alleged to be haunted or cursed, and if you’re afraid of ghosts, you might want to avoid visiting any buildings not built in the past few decad...
Unusual Wonders Around the World
November 18, 2018
SHENYANG, CHINA - SEPTEMBER 14: (CHINA OUT) (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images) Visitors watch full bloom red crabapple at Red Seabeach on September 14, 2014, in Shenyang Panjin, Liaoni...
How Did One Man Build The Coral Castle Alone?
November 15, 2018
Coral Castle (Photo by Hoberman Collection/UIG via Getty Images) In Florida’s Miami-Dade County, there sits an unusual structure known as the Coral Castle. The building, c...
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
November 3, 2018
Ancient ruins and monuments around the world can be quite intriguing. What history do they hold from past civilizations and what can we hope to learn from them? Print of the Statu...
Strange and Unusual Museums of History
October 23, 2018
There are some strange kinds of museums in the world. Some are humorous while others can be creepy or just plain mysterious. Here are just a few of them.A very strange and funny...
Beautiful, Deadly Antelope Canyon
October 22, 2018
There is an other-worldly place in Page, Arizona, where flash-flood waters have carved two hidden slot canyons of such extraordinary beauty out of the terracotta stone that you would ...
Historical Castles
October 20, 2018
Bran Castle - Bran, the Nineties (Photo by Adriano Alecchi/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images) Castles are intriguing besides being huge with numerous rooms, twists and turns, secret passageways, ...
Underground City in Turkey
October 18, 2018
Derinkuyu is the largest excavated of several underground cities in the area of Cappadocia. These pictures show just how amazing and complex this underground city is.This huge underground c...
Does Death Valley Conceal an Ancient Subterranean City?...
October 15, 2018
Death Valley National Park California United States Of America North America. (Photo by: Francesco Vaninetti/ClickAlps/REDA&CO/UIG via Getty Images) California...
Ringing Rocks of Pennsylvania: A Geological Mystery
October 2, 2018
A woman does Yoga on the edge of a massive boulder field, the remnants of a receding glacier at the end of the last Ice Age, in Pennsylvania on August 2, 2017. (Photo ...
Wait?? Where Was The Shining Filmed?
October 1, 2018
Timberline Lodge and Mount Hood; Mount Hood National Forest, Cascade Mountains, Oregon. (Photo by: Greg Vaughn /VW PICS/UIG via Getty Images) Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 movie, The Shin...
Remember These Most Popular Styles of Old Barns?
September 28, 2018
New England farm with Autumn Sugar Maples, Vermont. (Photo by: Joe Sohm/Visions of America/UIG via Getty Images) A symbol of America’s agricultural roots, the barn is a ...
Fascinating Facts About the Strange and Beautiful Baoba...
September 25, 2018
Baobabs in the savannah, red sky at sunset, South Africa. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images) It is hard not to notice the Baobab tree. It is unlike any other t...
Who Built The Great Serpent Mound? And Why?
September 18, 2018
The Great Serpent Mound in Adams County, Ohio, built between 800 BC and AD 400. This protected historical earthworks is nearly a quarter of a mile long and represents a giant ...
The Old Countess: Did Catherine Fitzgerald Really Live ...
August 10, 2018
People in the Middle Ages just didn’t live very long. Disease, war, bacteria, famine, and those pesky plagues did a number on mortality rates. Folks were luck...
Mysterious New York Waterfall Defies the Laws of Nature
August 6, 2018
Fire and water don’t mix. Everyone knows that. But there is a mysterious and magical place in western New York State where the laws of nature don’t apply and vis...
The Ongoing Mystery Of Who Really Built the Newport Tow...
July 16, 2018
The Newport Tower (also known as: Round Tower, Touro Tower, Newport Stone Tower and Old Stone Mill), Rhode Island, USA, circa 1960. (Photo by Harvey Meston/Arch...
50 Seriously Amazing And Weird Places You Never Knew Ex...
July 10, 2018
If the human imagination can dream it, architects and builders can construct it! From the humble to the extravagant, there is no limit to the uniqueness and creat...
Sand Dune Swallows Child: Freakish Phenomenon Nearly Cl...
July 2, 2018
A day at the beach suddenly turned into a life or death situation for a six-year-old Illinois boy in the summer of 2013. The threat to his life had nothing to do ...
The Great Wall of China: 6 Extraordinary Facts
June 21, 2018
APRIL 24, 2003: The Great Wall of China, much of which dates from the time of the Ming dynasty - the great wall of China, most of it dating of the Ming Dynasty (Photo by Ap...
The Six Oldest Castles in the World
June 20, 2018
For centuries, castles have been included with mysteries, tales of hauntings, folklore and fairy tales of Kings and Queens. Large stone-built structures of stately homes with huge m...
The Most Mysterious Mansion in America
June 8, 2018
SAN JOSE, CA - MAY 05: A general view of the house and the atmosphere on the set at 'Winchester' Mystery House on May 5, 2017 in San Jose, California. (Photo by C Flanigan/WireImag...
The 5 Most Mysterious Temples
August 22, 2017
Ancient temples hide within them thousands of years of history and mysteries... Credit: Mystic Lands
Chand Baori: World's Largest and Deepest Stepwell
August 22, 2017
Chand Baori is the oldest stepwell in Rajhastan, India and the deepest and biggest in the entire world. Stepwells are built with steps on the side which allows people to e...
French Postman Spent 30 Years Building a Palace Made of...
June 30, 2017
The story of the Ideal Palace began in 1879. One day, while walking his mail route, French mail carrier Ferdinand Cheval was distracted by a strange-shaped stone ...
Hollow of 650-Year-Old Tree Used as a Hideout by Two Je...
April 17, 2017
The hollow trunk of this 650-year-old oak tree was used as a hideout by two Jewish brothers during World War II. In Wisniowa, Poland, there is an English oak tre...
The Story of the Lonely Tree of Tenere
March 22, 2017
It’s difficult to be certain which individual tree is the most remote, but for several decades that distinction belonged to the Tree of Ténéré, a lone acacia tree standing in the vas...
Photos of Remains of the Twin Towers in Hangar 17
January 12, 2017
At New York Kennedy Airport's airplane hangar, fewer than 30 pieces of steel linger from the debris recovered after the tragic 9/11 incident when terrorists hijacked plane...
Twin Towers Under Construction (19 Photos)
January 12, 2017
Skyscrapers arised in the 1880s, these were supported by an interior skeleton made of steel columns placed every 20 feet or the like. The exterior walls of the building, known as...
California's 1000-year-old Pioneer Cabin Tree Has Falle...
January 10, 2017
Serving as human amusement, the Pioneer Cabin tree was one among many “tunnel trees” that had been carved out. The precise age and height of this tree were not re...
The Story Behind the Picturesque Devil’s Bridge in Krom...
January 9, 2017
Devil’s bridges are numerous throughout Europe. In France alone, there are about 49 Devil’s Bridges and these can also be found also in Italy, Germany, Portugal...
Portland Castle: One of Henry VIII’s Finest Coastal For...
December 31, 2016
Portland Castle is an artillery fort constructed during the time of Henry VIII on the Isle of Portland, Dorset, in the early 1540s. The two-storey keep was buil...
Passage du Gois: A Disappearing Road in France
December 16, 2016
Passage du Gois is a causeway in the Bay of Bourgneuf, linking the island of Noirmoutier to the mainland in the department of Vendée, in France. But the 4,150-meter long caus...
The Medieval Portugal Village Built Inside, Around, and...
December 12, 2016
Monsanto sits on the edge of a mountain not far from Serra da Estrela, and in this mountaintop village, homes are sandwiched between, under and even in the 200-to...
The Spectacular Devetashka Cave: A Bulgarian Landmark W...
November 17, 2016
The first written evidence of Devetashka cave is from 1877 by British traveler J. Baker. The cave has been rediscovered by a Bulgarian scientist in 1921 G. Katzar...
6 Things You May Not Know About Michelangelo's Sistine ...
November 17, 2016
On November 1, 1512, the majestic ceiling frescoes adorning Rome’s Sistine Chapel were unveiled to the public. Painted by a rising young sculptor named Michelange...
A California Town Where the Dead Outnumber the Living b...
November 9, 2016
Colma, a quiet town in California is home to 1,700 living residents and over 1.5 million dead ones. Most of the town’s forever-silent population are people who li...
Mont Saint-Michel: A Medieval Village Stuck In Time
November 7, 2016
Mont Saint-Michel wasn't always an island. In pre-historic times, it stood in dry lands. However, as tides rose, erosion reshaped the coast... Credit: Great Big Story
A Bar Inside a 6000-Year-Old Tree
November 5, 2016
In South Africa people built an actual bar inside a hollowed out tree called Sunland Big Baobab. According to the pub's website, the venue is the widest documented baobab, carbon-dated to...
Devil's Nose Road - The Most Difficult Railway in The W...
October 25, 2016
When Ecuador President General Eloy Alfaro took office in 1895, he announced that a new railway line would be built in the Andes -- connecting the coastal city of...
Monumental Mistakes in Famous Monuments in History
October 3, 2016
The Four Corners Monument The Four Corners Monument marks the point where the states of Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico meet. For a century, tourists have venture...
How Long Did Famous Structures Take to Build?
October 1, 2016
Information about history of famous buildings across the centuries, dates and names of architects included, as well as less-known fascinating info. H/T Visually
The Secret Room Behind Mount Rushmore
September 19, 2016
Mt. Rushmore may be one of the most recognizable landmarks on the planet, but it has been harboring a little-known secret for decades. According to The Sun, this iconic stone sculptur...
21 Vintage Photos Of The Construction Of The Iconic Eif...
August 12, 2016
The construction of the Eiffel Tower started on January 28, 1887. A little more than two years later, the iconic tower was finished in record time. It was conside...
In 1850, a Farmer Found a Secret Village Older Than The...
August 1, 2016
In a small bay in Scotland, a well-kept secret is hidden among the green hills. For millennia, no one knew that this place ever existed. Time and weather buried ...
