Category Fun Facts

• The soaring walls of Great Zimbabwe date back to 11th century, during the country’s Late Iron Age.
• The walls rise as high as 32 feet and were constructed from granite blocks of the exposed rock of nearby hills.
• The walls were built by laying stones one on top of the other without the use of mortar.
• It is believed that a maximum of 20,000 people lived inside its walls at its height.
• For many decades, the ruins at Great Zimbabwe were described, by Europeans, as a perplexing ‘mystery’ and an ancient ‘riddle,’. They refused to believe that such a complex site was built by Africans who they considered to be lower people and attributed the site’s construction to foreign sources.
• The Great Zimbabwe and the culture that flourished inside its walls declined by the 15th century.

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• Commissioned by the Roman emperor Hadrian to defend the part of Britain the Romans controlled from attacks.
• Some believe that it was constructed to prevent immigration and smuggling.
• The 117.5 km-long wall ran coast to coast from the banks of the River Tyre near the North Sea to the Solway Firth on the Irish Sea.
• It is called Vallum Hadriani in Latin.
• A significant portion of the wall still stands and is considered a British cultural icon. It is one of Britain’s ancient tourist attractions.
• Work commenced on the wall in 122 AD and was completed around six years later. It goes without saying that a construction project of such nation-spanning proportions required significant manpower. Three legions – comprised of around 5,000 infantrymen each – were employed to take care of the major construction work.
• It’s a popular misconception that Hadrian’s Wall marks the border between England and Scotland. In fact, the wall predates both kingdoms, while substantial sections of modern-day Northumberland and Cumbria – both of which are located south of the border – are bisected by it.

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• This wall is a national memorial in Washington, D.C. built to honour the U.S. Armed forces who fought the Vietnam war, and the service members who died in service or were unaccounted for during the war.
• The memorial is maintained by the National Park Service, the U.S. and receives around 30 lakh visitors each year.
• The Memorial Wall is made of two long, black granite walls, etched with the names of those being honoured in 140 panels.
• The stone for the panels was quarried from Bengaluru, India.
• Visitors can see a reflection of themselves in the names on the black granite walls, connecting the living to those lost.
• The names are listed in chronological order by date of their casualty and begin and end at the origin point, or center, of the memorial where the two walls meet.

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• Built several centuries ago, the walls of Babylon are situated 85km south of Baghdad.
• The ancient city of Babylon in Mesopotamia was protected by these walls.
• The Ishtar Gate, the eighth gate and the main entrance to the inner city of Babylon, was considered one of the world’s wonders for its beautiful design and relief work.
• Many of the walls of Babylon, like the ancient city itself, is now in ruins due to damage caused by reconstruction ordered by former President Saddam Hussein in the 1980s and more recently, the U.S. military occupation.
• Like the Hanging Gardens, they were included among the “world’s seven wonders,” and, according to every account given of them, their magnitude and construction were remarkable.
• The supposed height of the walls was improbable, as it is unlikely that mud-brick construction material described would have been solid enough to support the weight of such a structure, and exploration has shown that the length of this wall seems to have been closer to twelve miles around.

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• The construction of the Berlin Wall commenced in August 1961 to prevent the people of East Germany from migrating to West Germany in search of better jobs.
• Since it was built in the middle of Berlin, dividing the city into two, it was called the Berlin Wall.
• The 155 km-long wall divided the city for nearly 30 years, bringing misery to a lot of families whose members were split on either side. Many people who tried to cross the wall were killed.
• It was demolished on November 9, 1989 after several uprisings and the beginning of the fall of the Eastern bloc.
• Today, the remains of the Berlin Wall are a tourist attraction.
• No fewer than 327 people died trying to cross the Berlin Wall into West Germany, 10 percent of whom were women. Another 5,000 people were captured trying to escape over (or sometimes, under) the wall.

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