Curated playlist
Holy cities
- MeccaAround 19.3 million international visitors came to Mecca in 2024, yet caught non-Muslims there can be prosecuted.
- CanterburyCanterbury has two train stations with no direct connection between them. Rival railway companies built them.
- EphesusAlexander the Great offered to pay for Ephesus's temple, and the Ephesians said no.
- Acre, IsraelIn 1799, Napoleon besieged Acre for two months and failed to take it.
- LuoyangLuoyang, China, was named for where sunlight falls on the Luo River's north bank.
- BethlehemBethlehem is a city in the West Bank, about 10 km south of Jerusalem, and its Christian community has fallen from roughly 86% of residents in 1950 to about 10% in 2022. That community is now a minority in a city with a Muslim majority. Yet…
- Vatican CityOn the 11th of February 1929, two men signed a treaty at the Lateran Palace and created Vatican City.
- AntiochAntioch, once the Roman Empire's third-largest city, now lies buried metres deep.
- Salt Lake CityIn 1997, a newspaper revealed that a county geologist had erased a fault from Salt Lake City's earthquake maps.
- NazarethNazareth is the largest city in the Northern District of Israel, and many people call it "the Arab capital of Israel." The nickname reflects its role as a cultural, political, religious, economic and commercial center for the country's…
- AlexandriaAlexander the Great founded Alexandria, then left Egypt within months and never came back.
- JerusalemJerusalem has been besieged 23 times and captured and recaptured 44 times.
- IstanbulIn 1453, Sultan Mehmed II captured Constantinople after a 55-day siege. Hours later he made Hagia Sophia a mosque.
- ConstantinopleA Hungarian gunsmith named Urban built the cannon that finally broke Constantinople's walls.
- Vladimir, RussiaThe Russian city of Vladimir cannot agree on when it was founded. Chronicles say 1108, but the city says 990.
- KyivKyiv changed hands sixteen times between the end of 1918 and August 1920.
- RomeRome is the only city on earth that contains a sovereign nation entirely within its borders.