There is still debate as to which city was the first to reach one million people, but many people agree that it was ancient Rome. This milestone was achieved around the year 5BC. The first city with documented proof of reaching a population of one million was London England, which happened around 1811.

The name of the city Philadelphia comes from two Greek words. The first is philos which means love and the second is adelphos which means brother

There is evidence of people living on the site of Dublin since the first century B.C., but the actual town of Dublin was founded in 841 by the Vikings. Since that time it has grown to become Ireland’s capital and leading city.

A quick way to see the striking difference in economic development between North and South Korea is to look at both countries from space at night. In this famous photograph it is clear to see that a great deal more electrified infrastructure exists in South Korea. The North part of the Korean peninsula is almost completely black and the South is covered in light.

A law was passed in 1966 in Sweden that changed the side of the road that cars could drive on. The switch did not happen until the following year, and only after a lot of planning. On September 3rd 1967 at 4:50 AM all traffic in Sweden had to stop driving for ten minutes. During this time the drivers has to switch to the other side of road. At 5:00 AM everyone was allowed to start driving again but now they were on the right side of the road.

The modern state of Pakistan was created in 1947 after the end of British rule in India. When British India was granted independence it was split into two separate countries, India and Pakistan. Pakistan was made of the part of British India that were predominately Muslim. Since the Muslim population of India was concentrated on opposite sides of the country Pakistan had two territories separated by India. Eastern Pakistan fought for independence and in 1971 became a separate country called Bangladesh. Below is a picture of Pakistan as it was in 1970.

The city of Istanbul is located on a strategically important piece of land on the Bosphorus Strait. There has been continuous settlement on the site since before 600BC. The original name for the city was Byzantium. In the year 330 the Roman Emperor Constantine built a new city on the site called Constantinople. This city was the capital of the Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman Empires. It is now the largest city in Turkey, but not the capital. In 1930 the city’s name was officially changed to Istanbul. I wonder what they will call it next.

Despite its long history from the Roman empire to the birth of the Renaissance, Italy is quite young. The country that is now Italy definitely has a long long history, but it has only been in existence since 1870 when the last of the separate kingdoms unified. The United States on the other hand has been around since 1776, a full 94 years before Italy.

The Nile claims the title of longest river with a total length of 6650 Kilometers or about 4132 miles. This narrowly edges out the Amazon by about 250 Kilometers or 132 miles. In addition to its length, the Nile also has an impressive drainage basin the covers 10 different countries. Wikipedia lists 164 rivers that have length of 1000 kilometers or more.

The 1956 Summer Olympics were held in Melbourne Australia… mostly. Due to quarantine laws horses could not be brought to Australia. For this reason all equestrian events were held five months earlier in Stockholm Sweden.