Department
Locations
Strange places on the map. 116 case files (48 cross-filed from other departments).
DID YOUKNOW?One Roof TownDD-008
One Roof Town
Most of Whittier, Alaska lives in a single 14-story building, and the only road into town is a tunnel that closes every night.
DID YOUKNOW?Salvadoran SalvationDD-751
Salvadoran Salvation
El Salvador recorded 6,656 homicides in 2015, a rate of about 105 per 100,000 and among the highest in the world. The Attorney General's office reported 114 for 2024. Since March 2022 a state of exception has suspended some constitutional rights, and more than 83,000 people were detained by late 2024. The government credits the crackdown for the fall. Analysts say the official count now excludes some categories of deaths, and the IACHR and Amnesty International report arbitrary detentions and deaths in custody.
DID YOUKNOW?Iranian Missile CitiesDD-733
Iranian Missile Cities
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has publicized underground 'missile cities' in state-released videos. In March 2025 it showed a large facility where Iranian media said missiles including Sejjil, Qadr-H and Kheibar Shekan were stored. Analysts at The War Zone noted that the munitions appeared to sit in open galleries with few blast doors. During the June 2025 Israel-Iran war, analysts at ISW reported that Israeli strikes destroyed launch sites and tunnel entrances at several missile bases. In November 2025, Iran's passive-defense chief said the underground infrastructure was largely intact. Many details can't be independently verified.
DID YOUKNOW?Heavenly LakeDD-019
Heavenly Lake
Namtso (Nam Co) in central Tibet sits 4,718 m (15,479 ft) above sea level, almost 3 miles up. It's often called the world's highest saltwater lake. Its Tibetan name means 'heavenly lake', and it's one of Tibet's sacred lakes, with the snow-capped Nyenchen Tanglha range rising along its southern shore.
DID YOUKNOW?Canadian WildfiresDD-730
Canadian Wildfires
Canada's 2023 wildfire season was the largest since national records began, burning about 15 million hectares (the widely reported 18.5 million was a preliminary operational figure). That's more than double the previous record of 6.7 million hectares in 1989 and roughly 4% of Canada's forest area. Lightning started 59% of the roughly 6,700 fires but accounted for 93% of the area burned. More than 200 communities were evacuated, and smoke degraded air quality in cities more than 1,000 km away, including on the U.S. east coast.
DID YOUKNOW?Independence DayDD-726
Independence Day
July 4, 2026 was the 250th anniversary, or semiquincentennial, of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. The Second Continental Congress voted for independence on July 2, 1776, by adopting the Lee Resolution with 12 colonies in favor and New York not voting. It adopted the Declaration's text on July 4, and John Dunlap printed the first copies that night. Contrary to popular belief, the engrossed parchment wasn't signed on July 4. Most delegates signed it on August 2, 1776, and 56 eventually did.
DID YOUKNOW?The Glacier That BleedsDD-725
The Glacier That Bleeds
Blood Falls is a sporadic outflow of brine at the snout of Taylor Glacier in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, where the glacier ends at ice-covered Lake Bonney. Griffith Taylor found it in 1911, and its color was first blamed on red algae. The source is ancient seawater, concentrated by freezing and sealed beneath the glacier. Estimates range from about 1.5 million years of isolation (for the microbes living in it) to a Pliocene origin about 5 million years ago. The brine is salty, iron-rich and has no detectable oxygen. When it reaches the air, dissolved ferrous iron oxidizes into iron-rich nanospheres that stain the ice red as the brine drops 60 to 80 feet to the lake shore. A 2017 radar survey traced a brine pathway more than 300 feet long inside the glacier, making Taylor the coldest known glacier with persistently flowing water.
DID YOUKNOW?Reservoir RuinDD-718
Reservoir Ruin
Lake Mead (behind Hoover Dam) and Lake Powell (behind Glen Canyon Dam) are the two largest reservoirs in the United States, and both are fed by the Colorado River. The 1922 Colorado River Compact divided the river's water based on early-20th-century flows that later proved unusually wet. After a long drought, the Bureau of Reclamation declared the first-ever Lower Basin shortage in 2021. The 2007 operating guidelines expired at the end of 2026, and in August 2026 Reclamation adopted a new 2027-2036 framework, though the basin states didn't reach consensus. As of October 16, 2026, gauge data put Mead at about 26% full (1,037.43 ft, a record low) and Powell at about 23% full. Deliveries to the Lower Basin states will be cut by 1.25 million acre-feet in 2027.
DID YOUKNOW?Plitvice PureDD-717
Plitvice Pure
Plitvice Lakes, in Croatia's Dinaric karst, are a chain of lakes linked by waterfalls. The water is supersaturated with calcium carbonate, which settles out with help from mosses, algae and bacteria to build porous tufa (travertine) barriers that dam the lakes. These barriers are the park's UNESCO 'outstanding universal value'. The water is clear and low in nutrients (oligotrophic), and tufa forms only when dissolved organic carbon stays low. Croatia proclaimed Plitvice its first national park on April 8, 1949, UNESCO inscribed it on October 26, 1979, and the park was enlarged in 1997 to just under 300 km².
DID YOUKNOW?Bethlehem SteelDD-010
Bethlehem Steel
Bethlehem Steel grew out of the Saucona Iron Company, founded in South Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 1857. It became Bethlehem Steel Company in 1899 and a corporation in 1904, and was for decades America's second-largest steelmaker. Its wide-flange beams helped make skyscrapers possible. Its steel went into the Golden Gate and George Washington bridges and the Empire State Building. In World War II its shipyards built 1,121 ships, more than any other builder. It went bankrupt in 2001 and was dissolved in 2003.
DID YOUKNOW?Guizhou SolarDD-032
Guizhou Solar
Guizhou, in southwest China, is a land of karst peaks. Its thin soils erode easily, leaving bare rock, a problem known as 'rocky desertification'. Since the 2010s the province has covered those barren hills with solar panels. The first gigawatt-scale base, at Guanling, connected its first 1,050 MW phase to the grid on December 29, 2023, on about 20,000 mu (roughly 1,300 hectares) of deeply desertified land. Puding followed with a 600 MW project in 2025. Many sites are 'agrivoltaic': chilies, herbs, taro and vegetables grow in the shade beneath the panels.
DID YOUKNOW?The LineDD-031
The Line
The Line was announced by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in January 2021 as the centerpiece of NEOM in Saudi Arabia's Tabuk Province. It was pitched as two mirrored skyscrapers 500 m tall and 200 m apart, running 170 km from the Red Sea coast into the mountains. The plan promised 9 million residents, no cars or streets, and an underground train covering the full length in 20 minutes. Reality fell far short. Costs ballooned, and the first phase was cut to about 2.4 km. Construction was suspended in September 2025 with only foundation work done, and in May 2026 Semafor reported the project was on hold until after 2030.
DID YOUKNOW?Resting RosieDD-709
Resting Rosie
Rosie is a preserved great white shark, about 5 m long, now on show at Crystal World Exhibition Centre in Devon Meadows, Victoria, Australia. She was caught in tuna nets off South Australia in 1997 or 1998 (sources differ) and couldn't be freed. She was then preserved whole in formaldehyde at Wildlife Wonderland, a park in Bass, Victoria. When that park closed in 2012, she was left behind in a shed. Late in 2018, urban explorer Luke McPherson's video of her went viral. Trespassers followed and damaged the tank, which let toxic formaldehyde escape. Crystal World's owner, Tom Kapitany, took her on, and she was craned out and moved on February 21, 2019. Her formaldehyde has since been replaced with glycerol.
DID YOUKNOW?Lingshan LiftDD-707
Lingshan Lift
The Reel mixes up two different Lingshans. The footage shows the new cliffside escalator at Lingshan Scenic Area in Shangrao, Jiangxi Province, a national 4A scenic area of granite peaks whose highest point, Tianti Peak, reaches 1,496 m. According to the scenic area as reported by Chinese media, the escalator line is 1,236 m long with a vertical rise of about 256 m, built as 10 sections in 5 groups. It can carry about 3,600 people per hour each way, turning a climb of 3-4 hours on foot into about 30 minutes. It went into trial operation in August 2025, and international outlets reported it open in October 2025. The 'Grand Buddha at Lingshan' and Taihu Lake belong to a different place: the Lingshan Scenic Area in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, where an 88 m bronze Buddha completed in the 1990s stands on the north shore of Lake Tai. The escalator in the footage doesn't serve that Buddha or overlook Taihu Lake.
DID YOUKNOW?Mount BoktyDD-706
Mount Bokty
Bokty is an isolated, trapezoid-shaped remnant mountain (an inselberg) in Kazakhstan's Mangystau region, about 90 km from Zhanaozen. It's protected within the Mangystau State Historical and Cultural Reserve. Local tourism sources say it stands 165 m high and that its name means 'pie' in Kazakh, after its cake-like layers. The bands are marine sediments laid down on an ancient sea floor and later carved by wind and water. The white layers are chalk, and the red and brown ones are colored by iron. Nearby, the Kyzylkup tract shows the same striping and is nicknamed 'Tiramisu'. The mountain looks like an upturned boat from one side and a striped pyramid from another, and it appears on Kazakhstan's 1,000-tenge banknote.
DID YOUKNOW?The White TempleDD-042
The White Temple
Wat Rong Khun, the White Temple, stands about 15 km south of Chiang Rai in northern Thailand. In 1997 the Chiang Rai artist Chalermchai Kositpipat set out to rebuild a run-down local temple entirely at his own expense, and he's still building. White plaster stands for the Buddha's purity, and thousands of mirror chips for the Buddha's wisdom. To reach the white ordination hall (ubosot), visitors cross the 'bridge of the cycle of rebirth' over a pit of hundreds of reaching stucco hands representing desire and suffering. Inside, murals mix flames and demons with Neo, Superman and a Terminator. The site survived a 2014 earthquake, and the nine-building plan may not be finished until about 2070.
DID YOUKNOW?Tilted TownDD-035
Tilted Town
At Xenses, a Grupo Xcaret park just south of Playa del Carmen on Mexico's Riviera Maya, 'El Pueblo' (nicknamed the Pueblito al Revés, or Upside-Down Town) is a walk-through tilted-house illusion. It looks like a classic Mexican village, but the whole street sits on a pronounced slope, and the houses, doors and windows are built square to a false horizon instead of true vertical. Your eyes trust the buildings, your inner ear feels the real slope, and the conflict makes you stagger. Psychologists studying 'mystery spots' have found that vision usually wins this tug-of-war over the vestibular sense.
DID YOUKNOW?Winter in HarbinDD-034
Winter in Harbin
Harbin, the 'Ice City' of China's northeast, began its modern ice festival on January 5, 1985. Its roots go back to a 1963 ice-lantern show and Qing-dynasty lanterns made from blocks of river ice. Each December, workers saw blocks two to three feet thick out of the frozen Songhua River. Sculptors then turn them into palaces, landmark replicas and LED-lit castles. The centerpiece, Harbin Ice and Snow World, opened in 1999, is rebuilt from scratch every year, and holds a Guinness record as the world's largest ice-and-snow theme park.
DID YOUKNOW?The Chronicles of GeorgiaDD-028
The Chronicles of Georgia
On Keeni Hill at the north edge of Tbilisi, above the Tbilisi Sea reservoir, stand 16 bronze-clad pillars 30 to 35 meters tall. Sculptor Zurab Tsereteli began the Chronicle of Georgia (Sakartvelos Matiane) in 1985. Work dragged on through the Soviet collapse until 2003, and the monument was never fully finished. The upper sections show kings, queens and heroes of Georgian history, and the lower sections tell the life of Christ. The hilltop had once been earmarked for a 100-meter statue of Stalin.
DID YOUKNOW?Three Whale RockDD-703
Three Whale Rock
Hin Sam Wan ('Three Whale Rock') is a group of sandstone outcrops on a cliff edge in the Phu Sing National Reserved Forest, Bueng Kan province, near the Mekong River and the border with Laos. Seen from above, the three elongated rocks look like a whale family: father, mother and calf. Tourism sources and Wikipedia call the formation 75 million years old. A geology write-up identifies the rock as quartz-rich sandstone of the Phu Phan Formation, laid down by rivers in the Early Cretaceous, about 125 to 113 million years ago. It suggests the 75-million figure more likely reflects later uplift and exposure. Only two of the 'whales' can be reached on foot, and the 'baby' can't. The Tourism Authority of Thailand singles out early-winter sunrises, especially in November.
DID YOUKNOW?New York Hot TubDD-702
New York Hot Tub
After the January 25, 2026 winter storm and days of below-freezing temperatures, the NYC Department of Sanitation (DSNY) started eight snow melters on January 27, 2026, its first use of them since 2021. Officials call the machines 'hot tubs'. Dump trucks haul piled snow to fixed melter sites in all five boroughs, where front-end loaders tip it in half-ton buckets into heated water. DSNY says each machine melts 60 to 120 tons an hour. The water is kept at about 38 °F, enough to melt snow while controlling flow, and drains into sewers the city's Department of Environmental Protection approved. In DSNY's own words: 'We bring snow to the melters – NOT the melters to the snow.'
DID YOUKNOW?Grass SkiingDD-074
Grass Skiing
Grass skiing was invented in Germany by Josef Kaiser of Geislingen an der Steige; sources date it between 1960 and 1966. It began as summer training for alpine skiers. Grass skis run on tracks of small rollers, about 192 rolls in a typical pair. A European Cup started in 1971 and European Championships in 1976, and the first World Championships were held in 1979 at Bryce Resort in Virginia. The International Grass Ski Federation ran the World Championships until 1985, when the International Ski Federation (FIS) took over the sport and the federation dissolved. The sport is still raced under FIS today, with a World Cup since 2000.
DID YOUKNOW?Haus des GlockenspielsDD-698
Haus des Glockenspiels
The Haus des Glockenspiels (Glockenspiel House) is at Böttcherstraße 4 in Bremen, northern Germany, not in Rothenburg ob der Tauber. Coffee merchant Ludwig Roselius, who first marketed decaffeinated coffee, had two old warehouses there rebuilt in 1922 as offices for a bank, with gabled red-brick facades. In 1934 a carillon of 30 Meissen porcelain bells was hung between the gables. While the bells play sea shanties and folk songs, a tower beside them turns to show 10 carved wooden panels. They depict people who crossed the ocean by sea or air, including Columbus, Lindbergh, and Zeppelin and Eckener. They're carved panels, not life-sized moving figures, and they don't show local history. The bells play at noon, 3 pm and 6 pm from January to March, and hourly from noon to 6 pm from April to December, except in frost.
DID YOUKNOW?Water Forest ParkDD-027
Water Forest Park
At the north end of Qingshan Lake (Qingshanhu) in Hangzhou's Lin'an District, about 10,000 cypress trees stand with roughly two meters of their trunks underwater. The stand covers about 50,000 square meters, and the trees are pond cypress and bald cypress introduced from North America. Visitors walk boardwalks or paddle kayaks between the trunks. In summer, duckweed turns the water bright 'matcha' green, and in late autumn the needles go red and gold.
DID YOUKNOW?Arch of TitusDD-690
Arch of Titus
The Arch of Titus stands on the Velia at the eastern edge of the Roman Forum, where the Via Sacra climbs toward the Palatine. Its dedication (CIL VI 945) honors 'divus' Titus, meaning Titus after his death and deification. So it's dated after Titus died in 81 CE, to the early reign of his brother Domitian, around 81-82 CE. Its reliefs celebrate the Roman triumph that Titus and his father Vespasian held in 71 CE after the Judaean War, in which Roman forces captured Jerusalem and destroyed the Second Temple in 70 CE. The south panel shows soldiers carrying the Temple's spoils, including the seven-branched menorah. The north panel shows Titus in his chariot, crowned by Victory, and the vault shows his apotheosis. The arch is mostly Pentelic marble. In the Middle Ages it was built into a fortress, and Giuseppe Valadier restored it in the 1820s, filling missing parts with travertine. Its menorah image was later chosen as the basis for the emblem of the State of Israel.
DID YOUKNOW?da Vinci's Double HelixDD-688
da Vinci's Double Helix
The staircase in the footage is the double-helix staircase at the heart of the Château de Chambord in the Loire Valley, France. Two independent flights wind around each other and a hollow, partly open core, so people on one flight can see people on the other through the openings but never meet them. Leonardo da Vinci lived in France from 1516 as François I's 'first painter, architect and engineer of the king', and his notebooks include central-plan palaces and double and quadruple spiral stairs. Chambord itself says the staircase was 'inspired by' Leonardo and its architecture 'influenced' by him. No surviving document names him as the architect, and most art historians see him as an adviser whose ideas were developed with Domenico da Cortona and the master builders. Leonardo died on May 2, 1519, and construction at Chambord officially began on September 6, 1519, four months later.
DID YOUKNOW?Lux or LuxorDD-686
Lux or Luxor
Luxor Las Vegas opened on October 15, 1993, as a 30-story, 350 ft (106.7 m) pyramid clad in dark glass. Circus Circus Enterprises built it. At opening the pyramid held 2,526 rooms. Guests reach them by 'inclinators', elevators that run diagonally up the pyramid's corners at a 39-degree angle, around what Luxor promotes as one of the world's largest atriums. Two 22-story ziggurat-shaped hotel towers added in 1997 brought the resort to about 4,400 rooms, so not all of Luxor's rooms are in the pyramid. The sphinx at the entrance is a stylized, roughly 10-story version, taller than the Great Sphinx at Giza. At the apex, the Luxor Sky Beam shines straight up and has been promoted as the strongest beam of light in the world, which may be the 'lux' in the title.
DID YOUKNOW?Bos GaurusDD-685
Bos Gaurus
The gaur (Bos gaurus) is the largest living wild bovine. It belongs to the cattle genus Bos, so the common Indian name 'Indian bison' is a misnomer, since true bison belong to the genus Bison. India's national studbook (Central Zoo Authority) gives adult bulls a typical shoulder height of about 1.6-2.0 m and a weight of about 600-1,000 kg (roughly 1,300-2,200 lb), with cows smaller at about 450-800 kg. A muscular ridge over the shoulders gives the back its humped profile, and both sexes carry curved horns. Gaur live in forests, forest edges and grassy clearings from India and Nepal through mainland Southeast Asia to the Malay Peninsula. The global population is estimated at 13,000-30,000, about 85% of them in India, and the species is listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN. The gayal or mithun (Bos frontalis) is generally considered its domesticated form.
DID YOUKNOW?One Incense PillarDD-682
One Incense Pillar
One Incense Pillar (Yizhuxiang, 'one stick of incense') is a limestone karst pillar in the Enshi Grand Canyon, a national 5A scenic area and geopark in Enshi, western Hubei. Scenic-area descriptions give it a height of 150 m, a base diameter of 6 m and a minimum diameter of 4 m. They attribute its stability to flat-lying Triassic limestone beds with high compressive strength. Tourism and media sources say it has withstood several major earthquakes, though I found no independent geological documentation of specific quakes. Local Tujia legend says a deity gave the pillar to the people as an incense stick to light in times of disaster. The canyon itself runs about 108 km.
DID YOUKNOW?YonshakudamaDD-680
Yonshakudama
Yonshakudama means '4-shaku shell'. A shaku is an old Japanese unit of about 30 cm, so the shell is about 120 cm across. It's the showpiece of the Katakai Fireworks Festival in Ojiya, Niigata, held on September 9-10 each year as an offering to Asahara Shrine. According to the festival, the shell weighs about 420 kg, climbs to about 800 m and bursts into a sphere about 800 m wide. Katakai first launched one successfully on September 10, 1985, and Guinness recognized it as the largest aerial firework shell at 418 kg. That record has since passed to a 4-shaku shell launched at the Kounosu festival in Saitama on October 11, 2014. It weighed 464.826 kg, reached 907 m at the top of its burst and spread 748 m wide.
DID YOUKNOW?ATL Air TrafficDD-678
ATL Air Traffic
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) was again the world's busiest airport by passengers in 2025, with 106.3 million passengers. That was down 1.6% from 2024, and Dubai (95.2 million) and Tokyo Haneda (91.7 million) were closing the gap, according to Airports Council International. ACI says four of the five US airports in the top 20 are mainly domestic hubs, with 80-95% domestic passengers, which describes ATL's traffic. By aircraft movements, though, Chicago O'Hare ranked first in 2025. ATL has five parallel runways and two terminals, the Domestic Terminal and the Maynard H. Jackson Jr. International Terminal, with seven concourses linked by an underground train. It's Delta Air Lines' main hub and is named after two Atlanta mayors, William B. Hartsfield and Maynard Jackson.
DID YOUKNOW?Hydrant HygieneDD-677
Hydrant Hygiene
Fire hydrants are opened outside emergencies for three main reasons. First, inspection: checking that the hydrant opens, drains and is serviceable. Second, flushing: moving water fast enough to scour sediment, rust and stale water out of mains. Third, flow testing: measuring static and residual pressure and flow to rate a hydrant and model the network. Who does the work varies by city. In New York, the FDNY inspects hydrants twice a year (spring and fall), opening each one and flushing its barrel, while the Department of Environmental Protection carries out hydrant flow tests. New York State rules for water corporations require hydrants to be inspected and tested at least every three years, with methods from the AWWA M17 manual. The brown water often seen in videos is sediment and iron stirred up from the pipes. Flushing can briefly discolor tap water nearby.
DID YOUKNOW?Siwa Salt OasisDD-675
Siwa Salt Oasis
Siwa is an oasis town in Egypt's Matrouh Governorate, in a depression that reaches about 19 m below sea level. It lies about 50 km east of the Libyan border and 560 km from Cairo, and about 25,000-30,000 people live there. It has roughly 200 natural springs (one study counts 226) and several large salt lakes. Most springs draw on a shallow limestone aquifer, the Tertiary Carbonate Aquifer, which is moderately to highly saline. A 2026 study found that the shallow aquifer is recharged mainly by upward flow from the deep Nubian Sandstone Aquifer, whose 'fossil' paleowater is about 4,300 to 14,200 years old. Because Siwa is a closed basin, excess irrigation and drainage water has nowhere to go. The salt lakes grew from about 23 km² in 1990 to about 61 km² in 2020, and Egypt's water ministry calls waterlogging and salinity chronic problems. The vivid turquoise pools that visitors float in are very salty. The oasis was also home to the ancient oracle of Amun, which Alexander the Great visited.
DID YOUKNOW?Coffin HomesDD-046
Coffin Homes
Hong Kong's high housing costs have pushed about 220,000 people into roughly 110,000 subdivided units (SDUs). The median SDU in the 2021 census was 11 m², about 6 m² per person. At the extreme are 'coffin' cubicles: wooden, bed-sized compartments in partitioned flats, with a lockable door and little else. They're too low to stand in, and residents share kitchens and toilets. Per square foot, these tiny spaces rent for more than private flats. Hong Kong has regulated 'cage home' bedspace apartments since 1994. A new Basic Housing Units Ordinance, in force from March 1, 2026, sets minimum standards for subdivided flats (at least 8 m², a window and a toilet), but it doesn't cover bedspace or coffin-cubicle housing.
DID YOUKNOW?The Wailing WallDD-673
The Wailing Wall
The Western Wall (Hebrew HaKotel HaMa'aravi, 'the Kotel') is a limestone wall in Jerusalem's Old City. It's the more common name. 'Wailing Wall' comes from European descriptions of Jews mourning the Temple's destruction there, and in Arabic it's called al-Buraq Wall. The wall isn't part of the Temple building. It's a stretch of the western retaining wall that Herod the Great built, starting around 19 BCE, when he enlarged the platform of the Temple Mount. The Romans destroyed the Second Temple in 70 CE, but the retaining wall survived. The full wall is about 488 m long, with roughly 19 m exposed above the prayer plaza. The lowest visible courses are Herodian, and the upper layers were added in later periods. Because of restrictions on prayer on the Temple Mount itself, the Wall is the holiest place where Jews are permitted to pray. The site sits beside the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif compound, which is also sacred to Muslims, and it's religiously and politically sensitive.
DID YOUKNOW?Stick WalkDD-668
Stick Walk
The Banna (also written Bena) are a people of the Lower Omo Valley in southern Ethiopia's South Omo Zone. They live in the higher country around the market town of Key Afer and are closely related to their Hamar neighbors, with whom they share the Hamar-Banna language and major ceremonies. Their best-known tradition, the one in the footage, is stilt-walking, not walking with sticks. Young men and boys strap their feet to tall wooden poles and stride across roads and fields, sometimes about three meters above the ground. A 2026 DW report describes it as an old herding skill that helps young herders watch over their animals and stay safe from snakes. Other accounts describe it as a rite of passage and a performance at festivals, where stilt-walkers may paint their bodies with white stripes. Explanations vary, and some accounts doubt the practical origin story. Stilt-walking now also draws tourists, which DW reports brings extra income along with outside influences. The footage shows young men on long stilts walking along a road and across red earth, with green hills behind.
DID YOUKNOW?Nature's ReclamationDD-066
Nature's Reclamation
The Reel retells a famous thought experiment popularized by journalist Alan Weisman's 2007 book The World Without Us. In his version of New York, the first big change comes underground: about 800 pumps that keep groundwater out of the subway would stop, and tunnels would flood within days. Freeze-thaw cycles would crack pavement for weeds and then trees, corroding steel would undermine streets and buildings over decades, and forest would cover much of the city within a couple of centuries. There is a real-world test case: Pripyat, near Chernobyl, abandoned in 1986, where trees are taking over streets and wildlife is thriving.
DID YOUKNOW?Kangina GrapesDD-666
Kangina Grapes
Kangina (also spelled gangina or kangana) is an Afghan way of keeping fresh grapes through winter in sealed containers made of mud and straw. In summer, families shape mud and straw into pairs of shallow bowls and dry them in the sun for a few hours. At harvest, they fill one bowl with fresh grapes, cap it with the other and seal the seam with more mud. Each kangina in a 2025 Xinhua report held about 1 kg. Stored in a cool, dry place, the sealed vessels keep grapes fresh for up to about six months, from early October to late March according to Kabul-area vendors. Many are opened for Nowruz, the spring new year. The method works best with Taifi, a thick-skinned, late-season grape. The tradition is strongest in the Shomali Plain and Kalakan district north of Kabul, and vendors sell kangina grapes through the winter. The method had been studied very little until recently. A 2022 study of Taifi grapes stored at room temperature for 50 days found gangina effective but heavy and fragile. Styrofoam boxes cut moisture loss but led to more rot.
DID YOUKNOW?Tanzanian Half-MoonsDD-664
Tanzanian Half-Moons
Half-moons are semi-circular bunds, called demi-lunes in Francophone Africa. Each is a shallow basin dug in a crescent, with the dug-out soil piled into a low curved bank on the downslope side and the open side facing uphill. They're laid out in staggered rows along the contour so rain running off hard, crusted ground pools in each crescent and soaks in instead of washing away. FAO's water-harvesting manual describes them as a modern technique, not a traditional one, and gives an example from Niger's Tahoua region in the mid-1980s. Sizes vary from about 2 m in radius for crops and trees to 6-20 m for rangeland. In northern Tanzania, the Dutch nonprofit Justdiggit works with LEAD Foundation, Trias and Maasai communities in the Arusha and Manyara regions. It reports more than 50,000 'water bunds' dug there, along with grass seed banks and tree regrowth from old stumps. Results depend on rain, seeding and grazing control. A 2024 remote-sensing study of Kenyan and Tanzanian sites found mixed vegetation changes, and Justdiggit's own evaluation flags overgrazing as a risk.
DID YOUKNOW?State Flag SquareDD-661
State Flag Square
State Flag Square in Baku, Azerbaijan, opened on September 1, 2010, on the Caspian Sea shore. Its flagpole is 162 meters (531 feet) tall and was briefly the world's tallest before being surpassed in 2011. The flag was raised to mark national independence and identity. The footage, credited to an account whose name is partly obscured on screen (RealRo...k), shows the flag over the city.
DID YOUKNOW?BAPS NJDD-660
BAPS NJ
BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham, in Robbinsville Township, New Jersey, was built by the Hindu organization Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS). It was formally dedicated on October 8, 2023, and opened to the public on October 18. The AP called it the largest Hindu temple built outside India in the modern era, and NBC News called it the largest in the U.S. The 183-acre figure (NBC also cites 185) is for the whole campus, not the mandir building. Work began in 2011, so construction took about 12 years. BAPS says about 12,500 volunteers took part. About 2 million cubic feet of stone was used, and a 2023 report counted about 4.7 million hours of artisan and volunteer work. The stone came from several countries, including Bulgarian and Turkish limestone, marble from Italy, Greece and Turkey, granite from India and China, and Indian sandstone. It was carved by artisans in India, dry-fitted there, then shipped about 8,000 miles to New Jersey for assembly. A 2021 federal lawsuit by workers who came on religious visas alleged forced labor and very low pay. BAPS says the artisans were religious volunteers. Twelve of the original plaintiffs withdrew their claims in October 2023, and the lawsuit is ongoing.
DID YOUKNOW?ProsperiTreeDD-659
ProsperiTree
The Tree of Prosperity is a free kinetic show in the Rotunda of Wynn Macau, on the Macau peninsula. It isn't at Wynn Palace, the company's newer resort in Cotai. Macao's tourism office and Wynn describe an 11 m (about 38 ft) tree with 60 main limbs, more than 2,000 branches and 98,000 leaves made of 24-karat gold leaf and brass leaf, so the leaves aren't solid gold. During each show, a Chinese zodiac ceiling opens like an iris to reveal a 20 m LED screen and a crystal chandelier, and the tree rises from below the floor and turns to music while lights cycle through the seasons. A 2008 trade report credits mechanical engineering to McLaren Engineering, fabrication to Show Canada in Montreal and automation to Stage Technologies. The show's integrator dates the Tree of Prosperity show to 2006 and says a Dragon of Fortune show was added in 2010; the two alternate in the Rotunda. I found no source naming a designer 'Kevin McCurdy' or giving a cost of 'HKD 2 billion'.
DID YOUKNOW?Buoyancy Bridge IIDD-658
Buoyancy Bridge II
The Shiziguan floating bridge, nicknamed 'Langqiao Yimeng' after the Chinese title of 'The Bridges of Madison County', is in the Shiziguan Scenic Area, Zhushan Town, Xuan'en County, Enshi Prefecture, Hubei. It sits on water held back by the Shiziguan hydropower project, which since 2002 has dammed the Hongjia River (Hongjiahe), between steep hills. The deck has no fixed foundation. Pine joists and treated wooden planks sit on plastic floats and are held in place by underwater anchoring. Construction began in early 2015 and it opened in 2016. Scenic-area material gives its length as 400 m, while the official accident investigation gives 318 m, with a 4.5 m width and a 20 km/h speed limit. On May 16, 2023, a nine-seat van carrying eight people skidded through the railing on a bend and fell into the water, and five people died. Investigators found the van was going over the speed limit on a wet deck and that the scenic area had let vehicles above its size limit onto the bridge. The scenic area closed and reopened on December 28, 2024, after upgrades.
DID YOUKNOW?HajwalaDD-656
Hajwala
Hajwala is a Gulf term for reckless, show-off street driving. Its best-known form, high-speed drifting, is called tafheet in Saudi Arabia. In 'Joyriding in Riyadh' (Cambridge University Press, 2014), based on four years of fieldwork, the scholar Pascal Menoret traces it to Riyadh. It emerged after the city was planned around wide roads and oil reshaped the economy, and young men, many of them rural migrants, took it up as a way to claim urban space. Drivers spin and slide cars, sometimes rented or stolen, on public avenues and highways in front of crowds. Gulf News dates the culture to the 1970s. It's illegal. Saudi traffic authorities treat drifting as a serious offense. Penalties announced in 2016 rose from SR20,000 and impoundment for a first offense up to SR60,000, possible jail and permanent confiscation for repeat offenses. Riyadh traffic police said in 2025 that fines reach SR60,000, with impoundment and referral to court. The footage includes a car tipped up on two wheels on a highway, a stunt that's part of the same culture.
DID YOUKNOW?The KaabaDD-655
The Kaaba
The Kaaba stands at the center of the Masjid al-Haram (the Sacred Mosque, often called the Great Mosque) in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, and is the most sacred site in Islam. Islamic tradition holds that the Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) and his son Ismail (Ishmael) built it as a house for the worship of one God. It's roughly cube-shaped, about 13.1 m high, 12.8 m long and 11.03 m wide. The structure has been rebuilt several times in its history, and the 1629 reconstruction used large granite blocks. The Black Stone is set in its eastern corner. The Kaaba is the qibla, the direction Muslims face in prayer. During Hajj and Umrah, pilgrims perform tawaf, walking around it seven times counterclockwise. Its covering, the Kiswah, is made each year at the King Abdulaziz Complex for the Holy Kaaba Kiswa in Mecca. It's black natural silk embroidered with Qur'anic verses in silver thread plated with gold, weighs around 1,400 kg, and in recent years has been changed at the start of the Islamic new year, on 1 Muharram.
DID YOUKNOW?Rainbow MountainsDD-646
Rainbow Mountains
Peru's best-known 'rainbow mountain' is Vinicunca (Winikunka), also called Montaña de Siete Colores ('Mountain of Seven Colors'). It's in the Vilcanota range of the Cusco region, about 100 km southeast of the city of Cusco, between the districts of Pitumarca and Cusipata. Peru's official tourism inventory gives an altitude of 5,036 m, and the top viewpoint is listed at over 5,200 m. The stripes are tilted layers of marine, lake and river sediments laid down roughly 65 to 2 million years ago, then folded and lifted as the Andes rose. Erosion exposed them, and oxidation brought out their colors. The Cusco cultural landscape office, as reported by BBC Mundo, matches each color to its rock. Pink comes from red clay, mudstone and sand. White is quartz sandstone and limestone or marl. Red is iron-bearing claystone. Green is clay rich in iron and magnesium. Mustard yellow is calcareous sandstone rich in sulfur minerals. Brown is magnesium-rich fanglomerate, a rock made of cemented fan gravel. BBC Mundo also mentions copper oxide in the green layers, but neither source mentions copper sulfates. The mountain sits in lands of the Quechua farming communities of Pampachiri and Chillihuani and is regarded locally as a sacred apu (mountain spirit). The footage shows drone views of the striped slopes in mist.
DID YOUKNOW?Aquatic AmbulancesDD-644
Aquatic Ambulances
In Venice's historic center and the islands of its lagoon, emergency calls to Italy's 118 number are answered by idroambulanze, water ambulances run by the local emergency medical service SUEM 118. The boats in the footage are yellow, with red-and-yellow checks and the word 'AMBULANZA'. They are fast motorboats with a covered cabin for a stretcher patient and equipment much like a land ambulance: oxygen, a monitor and defibrillator, and stretchers. Italian sources describe the usual crew as a boat pilot, two healthcare workers and a nurse, with an emergency doctor joining for the most serious ('red code') calls. Italy has no separate 'paramedic' profession like the U.S. or UK, so nurses lead the clinical care. Local reporting has put the service at about 18,000 call-outs a year across the lagoon. It has run seven boats, with several on standby at once, based at the city's main hospital, the Ospedale Civile (SS. Giovanni e Paolo). Getting a patient from a narrow canal or a house without a nearby landing usually means carrying them by stretcher through the streets to the boat. A 2023 paper in the European Journal of Emergency Medicine described the service's unusual conditions.
DID YOUKNOW?Three GorgesDD-643
Three Gorges
The Three Gorges Dam crosses the Yangtze at Sandouping, near Yichang in Hubei province, China. By installed capacity it's the world's largest power station: 22,500 MW from 32 main 700 MW generators plus two 50 MW units that power the plant itself. The concrete gravity dam is about 2.3 km long, 2,309.5 m along its axis or 2,335 m by another measure. Its maximum height is 181 m, and its crest sits at 185 m above sea level, which is where the Reel's '185 m' comes from. The reservoir normally holds water at 175 m. Construction formally began in December 1994. The dam body was finished in 2006, and Guinness dates the last main generator to July 4, 2012. The whole project wasn't certified complete until 2020, after the ship lift and other works. Output depends on river flow. The design target is 88.2 TWh a year, and in 2020 it set a world record of 111.8 TWh for a single hydropower plant. Besides power, the project is meant for flood control and navigation, through a five-step double ship lock and a ship lift that raises vessels up to 113 m. According to Reuters, about 1.3 million people were relocated to make way for the reservoir.
DID YOUKNOW?Tesla DinerDD-638
Tesla Diner
The Tesla Diner opened on July 21, 2025, at 7001 Santa Monica Blvd. in Hollywood, Los Angeles. It's a two-story, 24-hour diner and drive-in built around a Supercharger station, with a 1950s-meets-future design. Tesla says its 80 V4 Supercharger stalls make it the world's largest urban Supercharging station. The stalls are open to any EV that can use Tesla's NACS plug. Two outdoor LED 'megascreens', which Tesla describes as 66 ft, show movies and clips. Drivers can play the sound through their car or the Tesla Diner app, or watch from a rooftop deck. Tesla owners can order from their car's touchscreen. On opening day an Optimus humanoid robot handed out popcorn, and trade press reported it was operated remotely by a person. Tesla says solar canopies shade part of the charging lot. Elon Musk first floated the idea about seven years earlier and said that if it went well, Tesla would open diners in major cities around the world. The Reel's 'all-electric' label isn't how Tesla describes the restaurant itself; the claim checked here is that it's a charging hub with a diner attached.
DID YOUKNOW?Construction CoversDD-631
Construction Covers
In crowded Chinese cities, some building and excavation sites are now covered by huge air-supported domes, sometimes called 'soft pillows' or 'giant airbags'. Fans on the ground keep pumping air in, so the slightly higher pressure inside holds up a membrane, often PVDF-coated fabric, usually reinforced with steel cables. The main goal is to keep dust and noise from reaching the neighbors. Local officials say a nearly 9,000 m² dome over a renovation site in Guangzhou's Yuexiu District blocks up to 99% of dust. CGTN reported that it keeps construction noise below 60 decibels. A dome in Shenzhen stands 40 m tall over more than 12,000 m². Officials say such domes can be reused and taken down without leaving construction waste. A related design is used on contaminated land. In 2016, a soil-cleanup project at Beijing's former Shougang steelworks built what researchers called China's first negative-pressure membrane yard. There the air pressure is kept slightly lower inside, so fumes and dust can't leak out, and exhaust is filtered before release. The footage shows a white dome between towers and a Gothic-style church, but the Reel doesn't name the site.
DID YOUKNOW?ArdabilDD-620
Ardabil
Ardabil is the capital of Ardabil province in northwestern Iran, near the border with Azerbaijan, with about 588,000 people in the 2022 census. It lies on an open plain just east of Mount Sabalan, a 4,811-meter dormant stratovolcano. Wikipedia lists the city's elevation as about 1,350 meters, with an average altitude of 1,263 meters. Local historical research puts its origins 4,000 to 6,000 years back, and Muslim historians credit its founding as a city to the Sasanian king Peroz I in the fifth century. Ardabil's fame comes from Sheikh Safi al-Din Ardabili, a Sufi master who died in 1334. His followers, the Safaviyya order, stayed loyal to his family. In 1501 a descendant, Ismail I, seized power, united Iran and made Shi'a Islam the state religion; the Safavid dynasty took its name from Sheikh Safi. Ismail I is buried at the shrine too. The Safavids promoted the shrine as a pilgrimage site, and in the late 1530s Shah Tahmasp enlarged it and commissioned the famous pair of Ardabil carpets, one now at London's V&A and the other at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. UNESCO inscribed the Sheikh Safi al-Din Khānegāh and Shrine Ensemble as a World Heritage Site in 2010. Its route to the shrine has seven segments, mirroring the seven stages of Sufi mysticism. The footage shows the shrine's tiled tower, facades and dome interiors.
DID YOUKNOW?The GladesDD-619
The Glades
The Everglades is a region of flooded grasslands in southern Florida. It forms the southern half of the Kissimmee–Okeechobee–Everglades watershed, which begins near Orlando with the Kissimmee River. That river drains into shallow Lake Okeechobee. In the wet season, water spilling south from the lake spreads into a sheet about 60 miles wide and over 100 miles long. It moves about half a mile a day across a limestone shelf toward Florida Bay, and can take months or years to get there. Marjory Stoneman Douglas called it a "river of grass" in her 1947 book. Wikipedia notes the phrase captures only part of the system. Its main feature is sawgrass marsh, broken up by deeper sloughs, tree islands, cypress domes, and mangroves and coastal prairie where it meets the sea. The National Park Service calls the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) a keystone species of the Everglades. In the winter dry season, alligators dig "alligator holes" that hold water when the surrounding marsh dries out, becoming refuges for fish, turtles and wading birds. About half of the original Everglades has been converted to farms and cities. Canals and levees were built from the late 1800s, including 1,400 miles under a 1948 federal flood-control project. Congress approved the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan in 2000. Everglades National Park was dedicated by President Truman on December 6, 1947. The footage shows open sawgrass water under a blue sky, then close-ups of marsh plants, an alligator and cypress trunks.
DID YOUKNOW?Mercedes StadiumDD-617
Mercedes Stadium
Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta opened on August 26, 2017, replacing the Georgia Dome as home of the NFL's Atlanta Falcons and MLS's Atlanta United FC. It is owned by the state of Georgia through the Georgia World Congress Center Authority and operated by the Falcons' parent company, AMB Group. Its construction cost was estimated at $1.6 billion in 2016. The architects, HOK, designed it from the top down. The roof has eight translucent ETFE "petals", each about 220 feet long. They appear to rotate like a camera aperture but actually slide in unison along 16 straight tracks, and HOK says they open in eight minutes and close in seven. Its circular opening was inspired by the oculus of Rome's Pantheon. The roof wasn't finished when the stadium opened. At a July 2018 demonstration, about 11 months after the first event, it opened in 8 minutes 10 seconds, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Below it hangs the Halo, a ring-shaped video board 58 feet tall and 1,100 feet around. The master plan set a regular capacity of 71,000, expandable to 75,000 for events such as the Super Bowl. On November 15, 2017, it became the first professional sports stadium to earn LEED Platinum certification, with 88 points. The stadium credits that to 4,000 solar panels producing about 1.6 million kWh a year, a 680,000-gallon rainwater cistern and a 2.1-million-gallon stormwater system. It hosted Super Bowl LIII in 2019. The footage looks up through the open roof from the field, then pans around the seating bowl and the Halo board.
DID YOUKNOW?ForeverestDD-063
Foreverest
More than 300 people have died in the Everest region in a century of climbing, and more than 200 bodies are thought to remain on the mountain. Above about 8,000 m, the so-called death zone, the air holds roughly a third of the oxygen at sea level, and summit temperatures average about -36 °C in January. Bringing someone down from there takes a large team, bottled oxygen and a short weather window, so many of the dead have stayed where they fell. Since 2019, Nepal-funded clean-up campaigns have started to bring some of them home: in 2024 a team of soldiers and Sherpa climbers recovered four bodies and a skeleton.
DID YOUKNOW?Mount KailashDD-607
Mount Kailash
Mount Kailash is a 6,638 m (21,778 ft) peak in the Gangdise (Kailash) Range of the Transhimalaya, in Ngari Prefecture in western Tibet, China. It is sacred in four religions. Hindus regard it as the home of Shiva. Buddhist texts describe it as the mythological Mount Meru. According to Jain scriptures, Rishabhadeva, the first Tirthankara, attained liberation there. It is also sacred in Bon, Tibet's pre-Buddhist tradition. There is no recorded ascent. The Chinese government prohibits climbing it because of its religious significance. A Spanish expedition was refused permission in 2001, and the mountaineer Reinhold Messner turned down an offer from the Chinese government in the mid-1980s. Instead, pilgrims walk a circuit (kora or parikrama) around the mountain, about 52–53 km long and with its highest point at the Drölma pass, about 5,650 m. Hindus and Buddhists walk it clockwise and Bon followers counterclockwise. Sources disagree about Jains: Wikipedia says they walk clockwise, while Britannica says they go counterclockwise. The sources of four rivers lie nearby: the Indus, Sutlej, Brahmaputra and Ghaghara (Karnali). Britannica notes that pilgrimage access reopened in 1981, that Indian pilgrimages paused for about five years from 2020 and that they resumed in June 2025. The footage shows aerial views of the snow-capped peak.
DID YOUKNOW?Kailasa TempleDD-605
Kailasa Temple
The Kailasa temple is Cave 16 of the Ellora Caves in Maharashtra, India, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1983. UNESCO calls it the largest monolithic temple of the 34 caves, which were cut into a basalt cliff between about AD 600 and 1000. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) calls it the largest single monolithic excavation and attributes it to the Rashtrakuta king Krishna I (c. 757–783), citing a copper-plate inscription of c. 812–813. The temple is dedicated to Shiva and named after Mount Kailash, which Hindu tradition holds to be Shiva's home. Rather than being built up from blocks, it was cut downward from the top of a sloping rock face into a free-standing shrine, with a gateway, a Nandi pavilion and a surrounding courtyard. Wikipedia, citing published estimates, puts the stone removed at about 85,000 m³, weighing about 200,000 tonnes, and the courtyard at about 82 by 46 m. Those figures are modern estimates, not records. The court elephants and an elephant-and-lion frieze around the base are among the parts the historian M. K. Dhavalikar attributes to Krishna I. Other parts, including the sculpture of Ravana shaking Mount Kailasa, appear to be later additions. The footage is aerial and close-up drone video of the temple and its carved walls.
DID YOUKNOW?Kawah IjenDD-600
Kawah Ijen
Kawah Ijen is the crater of the Ijen volcano in East Java, Indonesia. It holds a turquoise lake rich in sulfuric and hydrochloric acid. Its famous 'blue fire' (locally api biru) isn't lava. Photographer Olivier Grunewald, who documented it for years, told National Geographic and Smithsonian that the glow comes from burning sulfur-rich gases. These leave cracks at high pressure and temperatures up to 600 °C and ignite in air above about 360 °C, with flames up to about 5 m high. Some of the gas condenses into liquid sulfur that keeps burning as it runs downhill, which looks like flowing blue lava. The flames are faint, so they show only at night. USGS geologist John Pallister told National Geographic that miners sometimes light the sulfur themselves, which adds to the flames in night photos. Ijen is also a working sulfur mine. Ceramic pipes channel gas from a vent by the lake, and it condenses into molten sulfur that hardens yellow. Miners break off chunks and carry them out in baskets. Wikipedia, citing several reports, puts typical loads at 75 to 90 kg, carried up about 300 m to the crater rim and then about 3 km down, often twice a day. A 2024 study measured sulfur dioxide along the miners' path at 3.14 to 18.24 mg/m³, above the US EPA's 1.97 mg/m³ guideline. Miners reported eye irritation, coughing, headaches and shortness of breath. The footage shows bright blue flames and burning streams against the dark night slopes.
DID YOUKNOW?Albatross ChicksDD-599
Albatross Chicks
The grey-headed albatross (Thalassarche chrysostoma) is a mollymawk that breeds on islands in the Southern Ocean, with about half the world population on South Georgia. The IUCN lists it as Endangered. According to the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP), it usually breeds every other year. Eggs are laid in October, incubation averages 72 to 74 days, chicks hatch mostly in December, and they fledge in late April or May at about 116 to 145 days old. The single egg goes in a large mud-and-grass nest, typically on steep slopes or cliffs with tussock grass. At Bird Island, South Georgia, a British Antarctic Survey team used electronic weighing platforms under the nests to log chick mass every 10 minutes, nearly a million weighings in all. They found grey-headed parents delivered meals averaging 616 g, and with both parents foraging the chick got a meal about every 1.26 days. The diet is mostly squid, with some fish and crustaceans. Like other albatross chicks, they reach a peak mass well above adult weight, about 30% or more according to a 2000 study in Ibis, then slim down before fledging. Wikipedia, citing Bird Island studies, gives a peak of about 4.9 kg; adults average about 3.65 kg. The footage shows a grey downy chick on a pedestal nest above the sea, then a whiter, fluffier chick in tall tussock grass, illustrating albatross chicks at different stages or sites.
DID YOUKNOW?The Motherland CallsDD-590
The Motherland Calls
The Motherland Calls is a reinforced-concrete war memorial on Mamayev Kurgan, a hill in Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad), Russia. It is the centerpiece of a memorial complex to the Battle of Stalingrad, fought between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany from July 1942 to February 1943 and won by the Soviets at enormous cost. Sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich designed it with architect Yakov Belopolsky, and structural engineer Nikolai Nikitin led construction, which began in 1963. The statue shows a female personification of the homeland striding forward with a sword raised in her right hand and her left arm outstretched, a design inspired by the ancient Greek Winged Victory of Samothrace. The figure itself is 52 meters tall; with its pedestal and sword it reaches 85 meters (279 feet). Wikipedia, citing historian Scott Palmer, reports that Nikita Khrushchev wanted it taller than the Statue of Liberty. The sword caused trouble: the original stainless-steel blade swayed in the wind and was replaced in 1972 with a slotted steel version. The complex was dedicated on October 15, 1967, timed for the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution. It was the world's tallest statue until 1989, and Wikipedia describes it as still the tallest statue in Europe when the pedestal is counted. A major restoration was finished in 2020, and the complex has been on UNESCO's tentative list since 2014. The footage shows the statue on its hilltop above the city and the Volga.
DID YOUKNOW?Danakil DepressionDD-055
Danakil Depression
The Danakil Depression in Ethiopia's Afar region lies mostly about 100 m below sea level, reaching around 124 m. It has a mean annual temperature of about 35 °C. The colorful terrain in the Reel's footage is the Dallol hydrothermal field. There, hot, hyperacidic, iron-rich brines rise through a thick salt deposit, and the iron oxidizes into yellow, green and orange crusts.
DID YOUKNOW?StarbaseDD-582
Starbase
Starbase is SpaceX's Starship build, test and launch site on the Boca Chica peninsula in Cameron County, Texas, about 20 miles east of Brownsville and close to the Mexican border. The area began as Kennedy Shores, a small subdivision founded in 1967 and later renamed Kopernik Shores; by the 2000s it was better known as Boca Chica Village and had only a handful of permanent residents. SpaceX started buying land there in 2012 and announced in August 2014 that Boca Chica would be its South Texas launch site, with limited construction that year and much larger work from about 2018. Prototype flight testing began in 2019. Elon Musk announced plans for a city called Starbase in March 2021, and SpaceX petitioned Cameron County for an incorporation vote in 2024. On May 3, 2025, voters approved incorporation 212 to 6, according to Cameron County's election results, and Bobby Peden, SpaceX's vice president of Texas test and launch, was elected mayor unopposed. The county commissioners court certified the result on May 20, 2025, making Starbase a Type C general-law city with a mayor and two commissioners. Supporters, including local economic development officials, point to jobs and tourism; some residents and conservation groups have raised concerns about land use, launch effects and the nearby wildlife refuge. The footage shows Starship hardware and the tall assembly buildings at the site.
DID YOUKNOW?BuzludzhaDD-573
Buzludzha
The Monument House of the Bulgarian Communist Party stands on Buzludzha Peak in the Balkan Mountains (Stara Planina) of central Bulgaria, near the Shipka Pass. Bulgaria's communist government built it to commemorate an 1891 meeting nearby. There, socialists led by Dimitar Blagoev founded the party that became the Bulgarian Social Democratic Party, a forerunner of the Bulgarian Communist Party. Architect Georgi Stoilov designed it. Construction began on January 23, 1974, after the summit was leveled with explosives, lowering it from 1,441 m to 1,432 m. Party leader Todor Zhivkov opened it on August 23, 1981. The building is a circular, saucer-shaped hall of concrete, steel and glass beside a 70 m tower set with red-glass stars. Inside, about 937 m² of mosaics depicted the party's history and figures such as Marx and Lenin. Maintenance stopped after communism ended in 1989, and the building was stripped and left open to the weather, so part of the mosaic art has been lost. Wikipedia notes that earlier rescue proposals were mostly political and tied to the Bulgarian Socialist Party. In 2018, Europa Nostra listed it among Europe's seven most endangered heritage sites. The Buzludzha Project Foundation, founded in 2015 by architect Dora Ivanova, received a Getty Foundation grant in 2019 for a conservation management plan. A second grant in 2020 paid for emergency stabilization of the mosaics. The foundation describes the building today as a symbol of conflict between people with different views of the past. The footage shows the frost-covered peak, the saucer roof and the tower's red star at sunrise.
DID YOUKNOW?Unlimited BladeworksDD-572
Unlimited Bladeworks
The Didgori memorial stands on the meadows of Mount Didgori, about 40 km west of Tbilisi in the Trialeti Range. It marks the Battle of Didgori, fought on August 12, 1121. King David IV of Georgia, known as David the Builder, defeated a much larger Muslim coalition led by the Artuqid commander Ilghazi, acting for the Seljuk sultan. Medieval chroniclers gave wildly inflated figures for Ilghazi's army. Modern Georgian historians estimate 100,000 to 250,000 men, against roughly 55,000 on David's side, a force that included Kipchak allies and a small number of Frankish knights. Accounts credit David's victory to surprise and the terrain. The Georgian Chronicles call it the 'miraculous victory'. The next year, 1122, David took Tbilisi and made it his capital. The battle is traditionally seen as opening Georgia's medieval golden age. Sculptor Merab Berdzenishvili and architect Tamaz Gabunia designed the memorial, which went up in the early 1990s and won them the State Prize of Georgia in 1995. Dozens of giant swords are driven into the ground like crosses. Colossal sculptures of warriors lie scattered across the meadows, and at the center stands a concrete column shaped like a deda bodzi, the central pillar of a traditional Georgian house. Since 1997, a commemoration called Didgoroba has been held at the monument every August 12. The footage shows the swords against a blue sky and spread across the grassy ridges, with wildflowers in the foreground.
DID YOUKNOW?Bunker ValentinDD-571
Bunker Valentin
Bunker Valentin is a bomb-proof U-boat factory that the German navy (Kriegsmarine) built on the Weser River at Bremen-Farge, in Bremen's Rekum district. With Allied bombers pounding open shipyards, the plan was to assemble Type XXI submarines there from prefabricated sections, on an assembly line. Construction ran from 1943 to March 1945. The memorial says it was the second-largest above-ground bunker in Europe. Wikipedia gives its size as about 426 m long and up to 97 m wide, with a height of 22.5 to 27 m. Its walls are about 4.5 m thick, and its roof is 4.5 m thick, rising to 7 m in one section. According to the memorial, up to 10,000 forced laborers built it: civilians from across Europe, Soviet prisoners of war, Italian military internees, concentration-camp prisoners from the nearby Neuengamme subcamp at Farge, and Gestapo labor-camp inmates. They worked 12-hour shifts day and night. The memorial puts the death toll at about 1,600, from hunger, disease and arbitrary killings, and 1,144 victims are known by name. On March 27, 1945, RAF 617 Squadron bombed the bunker with Grand Slam and Tallboy bombs. Two Grand Slams broke through the thinner western roof. Building stopped soon afterwards, and no submarine was ever finished there. After the war it was used for bomb tests. From the 1960s to 2010, the German navy (Bundesmarine) used it as a depot. A memorial sculpture, 'Vernichtung durch Arbeit' ('Extermination through Labour'), was erected in 1983. The bunker opened as the Denkort Bunker Valentin memorial on November 8, 2015. The footage shows the overgrown exterior walls and the dim interior bays behind fencing.
DID YOUKNOW?Baikonur CosmodromeDD-570
Baikonur Cosmodrome
Buran was the Soviet Union's reusable spaceplane, built in response to the US Space Shuttle and launched on the Energia rocket. The orbiter Buran (1K) flew once, uncrewed, on November 15, 1988. It lifted off from Baikonur, circled Earth twice in 3 hours 25 minutes and landed automatically on the cosmodrome's runway. Funding dried up as the Soviet Union broke apart, and the program was suspended in 1993. The flown orbiter didn't survive. It was stored in Baikonur's main assembly building, MIK 112, which was originally built for the N1 Moon rocket. On May 12, 2002, the roof collapsed during repair work, killing eight workers and destroying Buran along with Energia hardware. The craft in the famous photos are two others, kept in a separate Assembly and Fueling Complex (MZK) at Site 112A. According to RussianSpaceWeb, the MZK is 150 m long, 80 m wide and 70 m high. Inside are orbiter 1.02, the second flight article, which was about 95–97% complete and never flew, and OK-MT, an engineering mockup. Both were moved there in 1995. Their doors later jammed, and RussianSpaceWeb calls the building a sarcophagus for both vehicles. Wikipedia, citing CNN, reports that a Russian-Kazakh company, Aelita, has owned them since 2005. Baikonur is in Kazakhstan. Under a 1994 agreement, Russia leases the whole Baikonur complex for $115 million a year, and the lease has since been extended to 2050. The footage looks down on an orbiter between rusting work platforms in the MZK, then shows the hall and the vehicles from the side.
DID YOUKNOW?HallgrímskirkjaDD-567
Hallgrímskirkja
Hallgrímskirkja is a Lutheran parish church of the Church of Iceland, on the Skólavörðuholt hill near the center of Reykjavík. At 74.5 m (244 ft), it is the largest church in Iceland and the second-tallest building in the country. It is named after Hallgrímur Pétursson (1614–1674), the poet and pastor who wrote the Passion Hymns. State Architect Guðjón Samúelsson was commissioned to design it in 1937. He is said to have modeled it on Iceland's landscape, especially columnar basalt formations like those at Svartifoss. Architectural historians usually classify it as Expressionist, and Copenhagen's Grundtvig's Church is often cited as an influence. Building it took 41 years. Construction began in 1945, the crypt beneath the choir was consecrated in 1948, and the tower and its wings were finished in 1974. The nave was consecrated on October 26, 1986. The nave is plain and pale, and a lift takes visitors up the tower to a viewing deck. The main concert organ was built by Johannes Klais of Bonn and inaugurated in December 1992. It is 15 m tall, weighs about 25 tonnes and has 72 stops and 5,275 pipes. The statue of Leif Erikson in front of the church is older than the building: the United States gave it to Iceland for the 1930 millennium of the Althing, Iceland's parliament. The footage shows the tower at dusk with the statue, the main doors, the façade against a sunrise, and a winter aerial view.
DID YOUKNOW?SkyparkDD-562
Skypark
The Reel describes Vaisakhi Sky Park, a residential project by Vaisakhi Developers in Yendada, Visakhapatnam, a port city in Andhra Pradesh, India. According to the Reel, it covers about 10.35 acres with seven 20-story towers and 1,119 three-bedroom apartments of 1,396 to 2,765 square feet; I could not confirm these figures independently. The footage, credited to Vaisakhi Developers, shows renderings and views of the site.
DID YOUKNOW?Hurricane HeleneDD-560
Hurricane Helene
Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida's Big Bend on September 26, 2024, and moved inland, bringing extreme rainfall to the southern Appalachians. Western North Carolina, including Asheville, Swannanoa and Chimney Rock, saw catastrophic flooding and landslides; some locations recorded over 30 inches of rain, and the storm ranks among the deadliest in the state's history. The footage, credited to Matt Van Swol, shows flood damage in the North Carolina mountains.
DID YOUKNOW?Cycle CountryDD-501
Cycle Country
The Netherlands is known for cycling infrastructure, with about 35,000 kilometers (21,700 miles) of dedicated cycle paths. Dutch cities use separated bike lanes, protected intersections, cyclist traffic signals, bike-friendly roundabouts, dedicated bridges and large underground bike parking, which encourage everyday cycling and reduce congestion and emissions. The footage, credited to eurekahnb, shows a bicycle parking structure.
DID YOUKNOW?Blood BeachDD-443
Blood Beach
Hormuz Island in Iran's part of the Persian Gulf is known for red soil and sand rich in iron oxide, mainly hematite, which washes onto its beaches and colors the surf red. Locals use the red earth, called gelak, in cooking and crafts. The footage shows the island's red soil and sand.
DID YOUKNOW?ShanghaiDD-430
Shanghai
Shanghai, on China's east coast where the Yangtze River meets the East China Sea, has about 24 million residents and is a major center of finance and trade. It grew as an international port after 1842. The Bund waterfront is lined with early 20th-century buildings, while Pudong across the Huangpu River holds modern skyscrapers. The footage shows the Shanghai skyline.
DID YOUKNOW?Enter SionDD-406
Enter Sion
Sion Airport (LSGS) lies in the Rhône Valley in Switzerland's canton of Valais, surrounded by high Alpine terrain. According to the Reel, its instrument approach to Runway 25 uses an instrument guidance system with an initial 6-degree glide slope that eases to 4 degrees, much steeper than the standard 3 degrees, and pilots need special authorization to fly instrument approaches there. The footage shows an approach into the valley.
DID YOUKNOW?The TitanpointeDD-400
The Titanpointe
The AT&T Long Lines Building at 33 Thomas Street in Manhattan is a 550-foot (168 m) windowless brutalist tower completed in 1974, designed by John Carl Warnecke & Associates to house long-distance telephone switching equipment and to withstand disasters, including nuclear fallout. In 2016, The Intercept reported that documents linked it to a National Security Agency surveillance site code-named Titanpointe; AT&T and the NSA did not confirm. The footage shows the building from street level.
DID YOUKNOW?Sanctuary of TruthDD-379
Sanctuary of Truth
The Sanctuary of Truth in Pattaya, Thailand, is a carved wooden structure about 105 meters tall, built with wooden joinery rather than metal nails. Thai businessman Lek Viriyaphant began it in 1981, and carving and restoration continue; the Reel puts completion around 2050. Its design mixes Thai, Khmer, Chinese and Indian styles with Hindu and Buddhist imagery. The footage shows the sanctuary and its carvings.
DID YOUKNOW?Maeklong MarketDD-370
Maeklong Market
The Maeklong Railway Market in Samut Songkhram Province, Thailand, sits on the tracks of the Maeklong Railway. When a train approaches, vendors fold their awnings and pull goods back from the rails; once it passes, they reopen within moments. The market sells fresh produce, seafood and local food and is a popular tourist stop. The footage shows a train passing through the market.
DID YOUKNOW?Towering TowerDD-363
Towering Tower
East Pacific Center Tower A in Shenzhen, completed in 2013, is about 306 meters (1,004 feet) tall and contains apartments within a mixed-use complex. The Reel calls it China's tallest residential building; I attributed that ranking to the Reel. The tower is in Futian District. The footage shows the tower and the city skyline.
DID YOUKNOW?Dredging Up the...Ground?DD-323
Dredging Up the...Ground?
Dredging ships remove sediment and debris from the bottoms of rivers, harbors and seas. They keep waterways navigable, deepen shipping channels and can reclaim land from the sea. They work with suction pipes, mechanical buckets or cutter heads. The footage shows a dredger's hopper and land reclamation; the on-screen credit is Eko Atlantic, a city being built on reclaimed land in Lagos, Nigeria.
DID YOUKNOW?To Break the IceDD-318
To Break the Ice
Icebreakers are ships built to clear paths through sea ice. Their sloped, reinforced bows let them ride up onto the ice so the ship's weight breaks it, and strengthened hulls protect them from damage. They keep polar shipping routes and research expeditions moving. The footage shows a red-hulled icebreaker pushing through pack ice.
DID YOUKNOW?Glacial WaterfallsDD-316
Glacial Waterfalls
Glacial waterfalls form where meltwater from a glacier flows over a cliff or the ice edge. In warm seasons, faster melting makes the falls bigger. Meltwater carries fine ground rock, called rock flour, which gives it a milky look. The footage shows a meltwater river cutting across an ice sheet and pouring over an ice cliff.
DID YOUKNOW?Advanced Bicycle RidingDD-312
Advanced Bicycle Riding
Urban riding uses city features such as stairs, railings, ledges and benches for tricks, jumps and technical lines. It draws on mountain bike trials and BMX street riding and is known for self-expression. The footage is a rider's point-of-view clip descending long outdoor staircases.
DID YOUKNOW?What Are You Waiting For?DD-273
What Are You Waiting For?
An avalanche is a mass of snow sliding rapidly down a slope. It can be triggered by heavy snowfall, temperature changes or people. The Reel says avalanches can reach 80 miles per hour; typical slab avalanches do, and large powder avalanches can be faster. An avalanche can bury people, destroy buildings and flatten forests. For people caught in one, the main dangers are burial, traumatic injury and hypothermia. The footage shows a large avalanche filmed from a rocky slope.
DID YOUKNOW?The Baobab TreeDD-268
The Baobab Tree
Baobabs (genus Adansonia) are known for their massive, swollen trunks and sparse branches. The nine species are native to mainland Africa, Madagascar and Australia, and some trees live for well over 1,000 years. Their trunks store water that helps them survive long dry seasons. Baobab fruit is rich in vitamin C, and the bark fiber can be made into rope and cloth. The footage shows a car driving along an avenue of baobabs.
DID YOUKNOW?Wanderlust & Desert DustDD-254
Wanderlust & Desert Dust
Desert safaris are among Dubai's most popular tourist activities. Tours typically include dune bashing, driving 4x4 vehicles over the dunes of the Arabian Desert, or riding dune buggies, along with camel rides, sandboarding and an evening at a Bedouin-style camp with a barbecue dinner and entertainment. Many tours run in conservation areas such as the Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve. The footage shows dune buggies, 4x4s and desert camps, with the presenter.
DID YOUKNOW?A Winter OasisDD-253
A Winter Oasis
Ski Dubai, built by the developer and operator of the Mall of the Emirates, opened in November 2005 as an artificial indoor mountain. It holds the hall at about −1 to 2 °C all year and claims the world's first indoor black diamond run.
DID YOUKNOW?Mall of the EmiratesDD-252
Mall of the Emirates
Despite the title, the Reel's voiceover describes the Dubai Mall in Downtown Dubai, opened in 2008 and one of the largest malls in the world by total area, with more than 1,200 shops, the Dubai Aquarium and Underwater Zoo with its walk-through tunnel, an Olympic-size ice rink and a multi-level waterfall. It connects to the Burj Khalifa and sits beside the Dubai Fountain. The Mall of the Emirates, a separate mall opened in 2005 in Al Barsha, is home to Ski Dubai. The footage shows the Dubai Mall and other Dubai malls, with the presenter.
DID YOUKNOW?Astonishing Arabian ArchitectureDD-251
Astonishing Arabian Architecture
Dubai's skyline includes the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building at 828 m since 2010; the Burj Al Arab, a sail-shaped hotel opened in 1999 and often marketed as 'seven-star'; the Cayan Tower, a residential tower that twists 90 degrees over its height; and the Dubai Frame, a 150 m picture-frame structure opened in 2018 with views of old and new Dubai. The planned Dubai Creek Tower was meant to exceed the Burj Khalifa, but construction stopped around 2020. The footage shows Dubai's buildings, with the presenter.
DID YOUKNOW?Life on The PalmDD-250
Life on The Palm
Palm Jumeirah is an artificial archipelago off Dubai, built by land reclamation shaped like a palm tree with a trunk, 17 fronds and an encircling crescent breakwater. Construction began in 2001, using about 94 million cubic meters of sand and 7 million tonnes of rock. It holds hotels such as Atlantis The Palm, villas and apartments, and is served by the Palm Jumeirah Monorail, opened in 2009. The footage shows aerial views of the island and its buildings, with the presenter.
DID YOUKNOW?Supercar PoliceDD-249
Supercar Police
Since 2013, Dubai Police have added high-end sports and luxury cars to their fleet, including models from Lamborghini, Ferrari, Bentley, Bugatti and McLaren, in green-and-white livery. The cars are deployed mainly in tourist areas such as Downtown Dubai and Jumeirah, where they also serve for public relations and photos. The footage shows Dubai Police supercars on the streets, with the presenter.
DID YOUKNOW?The Land of IsraelDD-206
The Land of Israel
Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948, as the British Mandate for Palestine ended. Neighboring Arab states invaded the next day, starting the 1948 Arab-Israeli War; the war also displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs. Israel has since fought further wars with neighboring states, including in 1967 and 1973. Jerusalem is holy to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Israel designates Jerusalem as its capital, while Palestinians seek East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state, and the city's status is disputed internationally. The footage shows Jerusalem and other locations, with the presenter.
DID YOUKNOW?IranDD-204
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, is a country in West Asia. Its territory was the heart of several Persian empires, beginning with the Achaemenid Empire founded by Cyrus the Great in the 6th century BC. The country was widely known abroad as Persia until 1935, when the government asked foreign governments to use the name Iran. Since the 1979 revolution it has been an Islamic republic. Persian (Farsi) is the official language, and Azerbaijani, Kurdish, Luri, Arabic, Baluchi and other languages are also spoken. Iran has had tense relations with several countries in recent decades, including over its nuclear program. The footage shows Iranian cities, mosques and landscapes, with the presenter.
DID YOUKNOW?Visit This Tropical ParadiseDD-200
Visit This Tropical Paradise
Bora Bora is an island in the Leeward Islands of French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France in the South Pacific. A central island of volcanic origin, topped by Mount Otemanu (727 m), the eroded remnant of an extinct volcano, sits inside a lagoon ringed by a barrier reef and motu (small islets). The island is known for luxury resorts with overwater bungalows, and for snorkeling and diving among coral, reef fish, rays and sharks. The footage shows the lagoon, bungalows and reef life, with the presenter.
DID YOUKNOW?Soft Coral Capital of the World!DD-199
Soft Coral Capital of the World!
Fiji is an island country in Melanesia in the South Pacific, made up of more than 330 islands, about 110 of them permanently inhabited. Its largest island is Viti Levu, home to the capital, Suva, and to the Coral Coast, a stretch of the south shore lined with fringing reefs and resorts. Fiji's reefs are famous for soft corals, earning it the nickname 'soft coral capital of the world', with sites such as the Rainbow Reef. The interior of Viti Levu has rainforest, waterfalls and traditional villages. The footage shows Fiji's beaches, reefs, waterfalls and villages, with the presenter.
DID YOUKNOW?The Red CityDD-198
The Red City
Marrakech is a city in western Morocco, founded around 1070 by the Almoravids. It's nicknamed the Red City for the red-ochre color of its walls and buildings. Its medina, the walled old city, has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1985 and is known for its souks selling spices, textiles and crafts. Jemaa el-Fnaa, the main square, fills each evening with food stalls, musicians and storytellers, and UNESCO lists its cultural space as intangible heritage. The footage shows the Koutoubia minaret, souks and the square, with the presenter.
DID YOUKNOW?Catalan GothicDD-197
Catalan Gothic
Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia, Spain. Its best-known building, the Basílica de la Sagrada Família, designed by Antoni Gaudí, has been under construction since 1882. Gaudí worked on it until his death in 1926. The Gothic Quarter (Barri Gòtic) preserves narrow medieval streets around Barcelona Cathedral, a Catalan Gothic church built mainly from the 13th to 15th centuries, with its facade finished in the late 19th century. La Rambla is a tree-lined boulevard running from the city center to the old port. The footage shows Barcelona's streets and churches, with the presenter.
DID YOUKNOW?TheraDD-196
Thera
Santorini, officially Thira (ancient Thera), is a Greek island group in the southern Aegean Sea. Its crescent shape is the rim of a flooded caldera left mainly by the Minoan eruption, about 3,600 years ago, one of the largest volcanic eruptions in human history; it buried the Bronze Age town of Akrotiri. The towns of Fira and Oia sit on the caldera cliffs, known for whitewashed houses and blue-domed churches. The island's volcanic soil supports vineyards growing native grapes such as Assyrtiko. The footage shows Santorini's cliffs, villages and sunsets, with the presenter.
DID YOUKNOW?The City of 10,000 ShrinesDD-195
The City of 10,000 Shrines
Kyoto was Japan's imperial capital from 794 until 1868, when the emperor moved to Tokyo. The city has around 1,600 Buddhist temples and hundreds of Shinto shrines, and 17 of its sites are part of a UNESCO World Heritage listing. Fushimi Inari Taisha is known for thousands of vermilion torii gates lining trails up Mount Inari. Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavilion, is a Zen temple whose upper floors are covered in gold leaf. Kyoto is also known for its wooden machiya townhouses, the Arashiyama bamboo grove, tea culture and geiko (geisha) districts such as Gion. The footage shows Kyoto's shrines, temples and streets, with the presenter.
DID YOUKNOW?SakuraDD-173
Sakura
Cherry blossoms, sakura in Japanese, are the flowers of several Prunus species. In Japan they bloom briefly in spring, and their timing depends mainly on temperature, so warm springs bring earlier blooms. The Japan Meteorological Agency and private forecasters track a 'cherry blossom front' moving north. Hanami, the custom of viewing the blossoms, dates back over a thousand years, and records of bloom dates in Kyoto go back to the 9th century. The footage shows blossoming trees, with the presenter.
DID YOUKNOW?Burj KhalifaDD-158
Burj Khalifa
The Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, is the world's tallest building at 828 m (2,717 ft). It was designed by Adrian Smith while at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), and it opened in January 2010. Its Y-shaped plan and spiraling setbacks are partly inspired by Islamic architecture and a regional desert flower, and they help 'confuse the wind' by stopping organized vortices from forming. The exterior is clad in reflective glass and aluminum and textured stainless steel panels. The footage shows the tower from the air and from below, with the presenter.
DID YOUKNOW?Empire StateDD-157
Empire State
The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, with William F. Lamb as chief designer, it was built during the Great Depression and opened on May 1, 1931, about 410 days after construction began. Its roof is 381 m (1,250 ft) high, and its tip reaches 443 m (1,454 ft). It was the world's tallest building until the North Tower of the World Trade Center topped out in 1970. The footage shows the building and city views, with the presenter.
DID YOUKNOW?EiffelDD-156
Eiffel
The Eiffel Tower is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, built by Gustave Eiffel's company as the entrance arch to the 1889 World's Fair. During construction, a group of artists and intellectuals published a protest against it. It was the world's tallest structure until the Chrysler Building in New York was completed in 1930. It stood 324 m (1,063 ft) with its antennas; new antennas brought it to about 330 m in 2022. It has become a global symbol of Paris and France. The footage shows the tower and a portrait of Gustave Eiffel, with the presenter.
DID YOUKNOW?IguazuDD-153
Iguazu
Iguazu Falls are waterfalls on the Iguazu River, on the border between Argentina's Misiones Province and Brazil's Paraná state. The system is made up of about 275 individual falls along roughly 2.7 km (1.7 miles) of the river's edge. The largest, the Devil's Throat, is a U-shaped chasm. The falls sit within two national parks, Iguazú in Argentina and Iguaçu in Brazil, both UNESCO World Heritage Sites, surrounded by subtropical Atlantic Forest. The footage shows the falls from above and from viewpoints, with the presenter.
DID YOUKNOW?Taj MahalDD-123
Taj Mahal
The Taj Mahal in Agra, India, is a white marble mausoleum that Mughal emperor Shah Jahan built for his wife Mumtaz Mahal; construction ran from about 1631 to 1653. Its polished white marble reflects the color of the light falling on it, so visitors often describe it as pinkish at dawn, bright white or golden by day and soft or silvery by moonlight. It's been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1983 and was named one of the New 7 Wonders in 2007. The footage shows the Taj Mahal and its gardens at different times of day, with the presenter.
DID YOUKNOW?The ColosseumDD-121
The Colosseum
The Colosseum (Flavian Amphitheatre) in Rome was completed in AD 80 under Emperor Titus and could hold tens of thousands of spectators for gladiator fights and animal hunts. It had a velarium, a retractable awning of canvas or sailcloth that could shade much of the seating. It was hung from ropes and masts set in brackets around the top of the outer wall; sailors specially enlisted from the Roman naval headquarters at Misenum and housed nearby worked it. Historians debate how it was rigged. The Colosseum is part of the Historic Centre of Rome World Heritage Site and was named one of the New 7 Wonders in 2007. The footage shows a reconstruction of the arena and its seating, with the presenter.
DID YOUKNOW?Chichen ItzaDD-120
Chichen Itza
Chichen Itza is a large pre-Columbian Maya city on Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1988. Its central pyramid, the Temple of Kukulcán, also called El Castillo, has a stairway on each side. Around the spring and autumn equinoxes, the late-afternoon sun casts triangles of light and shadow from the pyramid's stepped corner onto the northern stairway's balustrade, which ends in carved serpent heads; the effect looks like a serpent descending. Chichen Itza was among the New 7 Wonders of the World announced on July 7, 2007, in a popular vote run by the New7Wonders Foundation. The footage shows the pyramid, the serpent heads and the presenter.
DID YOUKNOW?Machu PicchuDD-118
Machu Picchu
Machu Picchu is a 15th-century Inca citadel on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba valley in Peru. Most archaeologists think it was built as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti, around 1450. It was abandoned about a century later, around the time of the Spanish conquest, and there's no record of the Spanish ever reaching it. Local farmers knew the site; the American historian Hiram Bingham brought it to international attention in 1911. UNESCO listed it as a World Heritage Site in 1983, and it was named one of the New 7 Wonders of the World in 2007. The footage shows Machu Picchu and Inca-style portraits, with the presenter. This is No. 4 in his Seven Wonders of the New World series.
DID YOUKNOW?Christ the RedeemerDD-116
Christ the Redeemer
Christ the Redeemer is an Art Deco statue of Jesus Christ on Corcovado mountain in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It was designed by French sculptor Paul Landowski and Brazilian engineer Heitor da Silva Costa, with French engineer Albert Caquot; Romanian sculptor Gheorghe Leonida sculpted the face. Built of reinforced concrete with a soapstone skin, it was constructed between 1922 and 1931 and dedicated on October 12, 1931. It stands 30 m (98 ft) tall, excluding its 8 m (26 ft) pedestal, with arms 28 m (92 ft) wide. It was named one of the New 7 Wonders of the World on July 7, 2007. The footage shows the statue, Rio and portraits, with the presenter. This is No. 3 in his Seven Wonders of the New World series.
DID YOUKNOW?PetraDD-114
Petra
Petra, in southern Jordan, was the capital of the Nabataean kingdom, known for its rock-cut facades and water-conduit system. It remained known to local Bedouin, but was largely unknown to Europeans after the Crusades. In 1812 the Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, traveling as 'Sheikh Ibrahim ibn Abdallah', persuaded a guide to take him there on the pretext of sacrificing a goat at the tomb of Aaron nearby. UNESCO listed Petra as a World Heritage Site in 1985, and it was named one of the New 7 Wonders of the World in 2007. It's Jordan's most visited tourist attraction. The footage shows renderings of Petra's facades and Burckhardt, with the presenter. This is No. 2 in his Seven Wonders of the New World series.
DID YOUKNOW?The Great WallDD-111
The Great Wall
The Great Wall of China is a series of fortifications built across northern China over roughly two millennia, from the 7th century BC through the Ming dynasty, to guard against raids from the steppe. After unifying China in 221 BC, Qin Shi Huang connected and extended earlier walls. Much of what stands today dates from the Ming (1368-1644). Builders included soldiers, conscripted peasants and convicts. A 2012 survey by China's State Administration of Cultural Heritage measured all its branches at about 21,196 km. UNESCO listed it as a World Heritage Site in 1987, and it was named one of the New 7 Wonders of the World in 2007. The footage shows renderings of the wall, workers and Qin Shi Huang, with the presenter. This is No. 1 in his Seven Wonders of the New World series.
DID YOUKNOW?Lighthouse of AlexandriaDD-104
Lighthouse of Alexandria
The Lighthouse of Alexandria, often called the Pharos, was built on the island of Pharos at Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy II, completed around 280 BC. Estimates put its height above 100 m (330 ft), making it one of the tallest human-made structures for centuries. A fire at the top, reflected by a mirror according to later accounts, guided ships into the harbor. Three earthquakes between 956 and 1303 AD badly damaged it and it became a ruin; in 1480 the Citadel of Qaitbay was built on its site using some of its stone. Its name lives on in the word for lighthouse in several languages, such as French phare. The footage shows renderings of the lighthouse and harbor. This is No. 7 in his Seven Wonders of the Ancient World series.
DID YOUKNOW?Colossus of RhodesDD-102
Colossus of Rhodes
The Colossus of Rhodes was a bronze statue of the sun god Helios, about 33 m (108 ft) tall, built by Chares of Lindos to celebrate Rhodes surviving a siege in 305-304 BC. Completed around 280 BC, it was made of bronze plates over an iron framework. An earthquake in 226 BC snapped it at the knees, and it lay where it fell for centuries; Pliny the Elder reported that even fallen it was a marvel. In 653 AD an Arab force under Muawiya took Rhodes and, by later accounts, sold the remains for scrap. The famous image of the statue straddling the harbor entrance is a medieval idea; modern scholars think it stood on land, as ships could not have passed under it and the harbor would have been blocked during construction. The footage shows renderings of the statue and harbor. This is No. 6 in his Seven Wonders of the Ancient World series.
DID YOUKNOW?Mausoleum at HalicarnassusDD-100
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (modern Bodrum, Turkey) was a tomb about 45 m high, completed around 351 BC. It was built for Mausolus, a satrap of Caria under the Persian Achaemenid Empire, and his sister-wife Artemisia II, who oversaw the work after his death. Its architects were Satyros and Pythius of Priene, and its sculpture is credited to leading Greek sculptors. It was so famous that 'mausoleum' became the general word for a grand tomb. A series of earthquakes between the 12th century and 1402 wrecked it, and the Knights of St John reused its stones; demolition was complete by 1494. The footage shows renderings of the tomb and its ruins, with the presenter. This is No. 5 in his Seven Wonders of the Ancient World series.
DID YOUKNOW?Temple of ArtemisDD-098
Temple of Artemis
The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, near modern Selçuk in Turkey, was rebuilt several times. The great marble temple funded in part by Croesus of Lydia, begun around 550 BC, was burned by the arsonist Herostratus in 356 BC. A larger replacement followed, and that later temple is the one counted among the Seven Wonders. Pliny the Elder gave it 127 columns, each 60 feet high. It was plundered by the Goths in 262 AD and finally destroyed in 401 AD. One reconstructed column stands at the site today. The footage shows renderings of columns, statues and a fire. This is No. 4 in his Seven Wonders of the Ancient World series.
DID YOUKNOW?Zeus @ OlympiaDD-096
Zeus @ Olympia
The Statue of Zeus at Olympia was a giant seated figure, about 12.4 m tall, made by the Greek sculptor Phidias around 435 BC for the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. It was chryselephantine: ivory plates for the flesh and gold for the robes, over a wooden framework, and it sat on an ornate throne. It was lost in the 5th century AD. One tradition says it was taken to Constantinople and destroyed in the fire of the Palace of Lausus in 475 AD. Another says it perished with the temple, which was badly damaged by fire in 425 AD. The footage shows renderings of the statue, the temple and a fire. This is No. 3 in his Seven Wonders of the Ancient World series.
DID YOUKNOW?Hanging GardensDD-094
Hanging Gardens
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World whose location has never been established. Classical Greek and Roman writers describe terraced gardens and credit them to Nebuchadnezzar II, who reigned c. 605-562 BC and was said to have built them for his wife, Amytis. No Babylonian text mentions them, and excavations at Babylon haven't found definitive evidence. One theory, argued by Stephanie Dalley, places them at Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, built under Sennacherib. Others think they may be legendary. The footage shows renderings of terraced gardens and Babylonian scenes, with the presenter. This is No. 2 in his Seven Wonders of the Ancient World series.
DID YOUKNOW?The Great PyramidDD-092
The Great Pyramid
Built for Khufu around 2600 BC over roughly 26 years, the Great Pyramid was the tallest human-made structure for more than 3,700 years. Papyri found at Wadi al-Jarf record the logistics of moving Tura limestone, and much of the casing was later stripped for building material in Cairo after earthquakes.
DID YOUKNOW?The Bermuda TriangleDD-079
The Bermuda Triangle
The Bermuda Triangle, also called the Devil's Triangle, is a loosely defined area of the western North Atlantic roughly bounded by Miami, Bermuda and Puerto Rico. It became famous for stories of ships and aircraft that vanished, often with supernatural explanations. The U.S. Coast Guard does not recognize it as a special hazard, and studies have found that losses there are not more frequent than in other busy waters.