Fun Facts

The construction of Notre Dame Cathedral in Strasbourg began in 1015, but it took until 1439 for the final spire to be completed.

Before 2003, the Petronas Tower in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, was the tallest building in the world with a height of 1,483 feet.

The Taipei 101 building in Taipei, Taiwan, was completed in 2003 and is the world’s tallest building with a height of 1,670 feet.

The Empire State Building has been known to sway several feet from side to side during heavy rainstorms and windstorms.

Stonehenge in England is about 1,500 years older than the Colosseum in Rome.

The Eiffel Tower in Paris is 984 feet high.

Every seven years the Eiffel Tower is painted with 300 tons of a reddish green paint.

Egypt ’s Great Pyramid has an estimated weight of 6,648,000 tons.

The Statue of Liberty’s right arm is 42 feet long.

Milan ’s Gothic cathedral was begun in 1386 and was completed in 1805.

The concrete in the Hoover Dam is expected to fully set in 500 years and is expected to last 2,000 years.

The Statue of Liberty was a gift to the United States of America from France. The famous statue arrived to the States via the French ship Isere in 1885.

In Japan, the hulls from rice are made into a paste used to make bricks. The houses built from these bricks are called “houses of rice skin.”

In Nepal, cow dung, mud, sand, and clay are mixed together to build houses.

The Greek historian, Herodotus, wrote that 400,000 men took twenty years to build the Great Pyramid in Egypt. The Great Pyramid covers an area equal to ten football fields.

The Great Wall of China is the only man-made structure on earth that can be seen from space.