The United States celebrates its independence from Great Britain today, but many other countries have their own Independence Days.
America has the only Fourth of July celebration, but more than a dozen other countries mark their independence this month, including Canada (July 1), Belarus (July 3), Venezuela (July 5), Argentina (July 9), Slovakia (July 17), Belgium (July 21) and Peru (July 28).
Happy Independence Day!
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The European Union currently consists of 27 member nations. Officially formed in 1993, the EU's roots date back to 1951 and the formation of the six-nation European Coal and Steel Community.
Since 2004, the EU's population and economy are both bigger than the United States'. The EU has 23 official languages, but only 15 of the 27 members use the euro as currency.
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Paris is The City of Light. Rome is The Eternal City. But what is London's nickname?
The Big Smoke. The Old Smoke. Or simply The Smoke.
It's not nearly as romantic as Paris' nickname nor as timeless as Rome's, but London's little-known nickname comes from the city's famed fog and the Great Smog of 1952, otherwise known as The Big Smoke.
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Syria is now home to the world's largest restaurant—Damascus Gate, which seats a whopping 6,014 diners.
According to the BBC, the 3-year-old suburban restaurant recently grabbed the Guinness World Record from a 5,000-seat eatery in Bangkok, Thailand.
Want more stats? Damascus Gate covers 580,000 square feet, has a 27,000-square-foot kitchen and employs 1,800 staff in the summer. And the cost? $40 million.
Neuschwanstein Castle, the famed Bavarian castle near Hohenschwangau, is the most photographed building in Germany even though public photography is not permitted inside the castle.
The castle was built by King Ludwig II, who was known for his eccentricities. He was sometimes referred to as der Märchenkönig ("the fairy-tale king"), which is quite appropriate considering that Neuschwanstein served as the inspiration for several Disney castles—including the Cinderella Castle at Disney World in Florida and the Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland in California.
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Most people know that Switzerland is a neutral country, but may not realize that the Swiss are not alone in their neutrality. There are a total of eight neutral countries: Austria, Costa Rica, Finland, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkmenistan.
Broadly, neutrality means not taking sides in armed conflict between warring countries, but it has a range of real-world manifestations: For instance, Switzerland and Sweden are famous for their large armies (and those armies, in turn, are famous for pocketknives and bicycles, respectively), while other countries keep very small fighting forces. Likewise, Ireland allows foreign military forces inside its borders—specifically, military aircraft can land at Shannon Airport—while other neutral countries don't.
Neutral countries in Europe (Austria, Sweden, Ireland and Finland, but not Switzerland) also find themselves in the conundrum of belonging to—and being bound by the policies of—the European Union, which is not neutral.
Victoria Falls, which straddles the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe along the Zambezi River, may not be the tallest nor the largest waterfall in the world, but it's certainly one of the most spectacular.
The falls—which are twice as wide and twice as deep at Niagara Falls—were named Mosi-oa-Tunya, or "The Smoke That Thunders," by the local Kalolo-Lozi people. But British explorer David Livingstone, who was the first European to see the falls in 1855, named them after Queen Victoria. Livingstone wrote of the falls:
"No one can imagine the beauty of the view from anything witnessed in England. It had never been seen before by European eyes; but scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight."
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When Sevillians built their Plaza de España for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929, they were likely hoping to attract a few hordes of Latin American admirers; they probably didn't appreciate their creation for the intergalactic stage it would later become.
In 2002's Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones, Anakin Skywalker (aka Darth Vader) and Padmé (unwitting Mrs. Vader) glide into the plaza on a spaceship and walk around its huge half-circle portico. The sequence is only a few seconds in total, but it's long enough to appreciate the computer-generated effects that add a touch of Naboo to one of Seville's most prominent landmarks.
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Cinco de Mayo will be celebrated in Mexico—and countries around the world—on Monday. The festive holiday honors Mexican pride and heritage, but it is not Mexico's Independence Day, which is celebrated on September 16.
Instead, Cinco de Mayo commemorates the Mexican victory—under the command of General Ignacio Zaragoza—over Napoleon III's French forces in the Battle of Puebla, southeast of Mexico City, on May 5, 1862.
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Big Ben is truly a name that rings a bell, but whose name is it?
The official British Houses of Parliament site acknowledges that the exact origins of the name "Big Ben" are unknown. The famous London icon is commonly believed to have been named after Sir Benjamin Hall, "the First Commissioner of Works and a tall man known in the House of Commons as Big Ben."
But another theory is that Big Ben was named after champion heavyweight boxer Ben Caunt, another Big Ben "who fought his last fight in 1857, when the bell, and the debate of what to name it, was in the public consciousness."
