1Citadel of Erbil
The Citadel of Erbil located in the present day Iraq, is a mound that has been continuously inhabited since 5000 B.C. In 2007, all its inhabitants were temporarily evicted to conduct a restoration project, except for a single-family, who was allowed to stay and not break the continuous habitation record.
2. An effective assault tactic on a castle was to mine underneath it. Sometimes the defenders would also mine and meet them underground, and a sword battle would ensue.
3. Loopholes were small slits in castle walls that let archers fire arrows. The modern use of the term reflects the apparent contradiction between the intent of an impenetrable wall and having small holes in it that allow defenders to gain an advantage.
4. Dover Castle is the largest castle in England. There are over 3 miles of secret wartime tunnels snaking deep into the cliff. Many of these tunnels are still undiscovered.
5. The Český Krumlov Castle in the present day Czech Republic has a moat filled with bears. It's called the "Bear Moat" and it was first filled with bears in 1707, if not earlier.
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6Sacsayhuaman Fortress
The mysterious 120-ton boulder walls of an ancient fortress in Sacsayhuaman, Peru have survived thousands of years, including earthquakes, in part, because they "fit together with such precision you can’t fit a piece of paper between them."
7. The 15th-Century Islamic mosaics in Spain's Alhambra palace display a near-perfect understanding of mathematical logic and 16 of 17 types of symmetry identified by modern mathematicians.
8. The pope has a summer/vacation home known as the Palace of Castel Gandolfo and it is technically an exclave of Vacation City.
9. Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace have horological conservators. Their job is to check the 400 clock as at Windsor Castle and 600 clocks at Buckingham Palace daily. They wind them all once a week, and reset them for Daylight Savings Time. The clocks in their kitchen, however, are set 5 minutes fast to ensure the food comes out on time.
10. China's Old Summer Palace was a complex of palaces that was 8 times the size of the Vatican. Deemed the pinnacle of Chinese gardens, it contained exquisite artworks and many historical treasures. In 1860, the British sacked and looted the Palace for 3 days, turning it into its current state of ruination.
11Fort Saint-Jean
Fort Saint-Jean in Marseille, France was built with cannons facing the city, not the sea, due to constant uprisings.
12. Herodium in Jerusalem is a massive palace-fortress which was built on an artificial mountain by Herod the Great, way back in 15 B.C. It consisted of four 7-story towers, a bathhouse with three temperatures, courtyards, a full Roman theatre, banquet rooms, a full Roman garden, a 2x Olympic size swimming pool, and more.
13. The Nijō Palace in Kyoto has special floors that squeak when walked upon, a sound that is very similar to the Nightingale birds. So when attackers tried to kill the Shogun, they gave their position away, but only thought that the birds outside were chirping.
14. In the ancient Indian Kingdom of Golconda, King Ibrahim Wali designed and built a fortress city so acoustically perfect that a hand clap at the fortress gates could be heard at the top of the citadel itself, located on the summit of a 300-foot hill.
15. Actress Rose Leslie who played Ygritte in Game of Thrones, grew up in Lickleyhead Castle, her family's 15th-century ancestral seat in Aberdeen, Scotland. She is a descendant of Charles II.
165 Temples in Kyoto
There are 5 temples in Kyoto, Japan that have blood-stained ceilings. The ceilings are made from the floorboards of a castle where warriors killed themselves after a long hold-off against an army. To this day, you can still see the bloody outlines and footprints.
17. Almost half a million tourists come to Romania each year to visit Bran Castle, also known as Dracula's castle, located in Brasov, Romania, 170 km north of the capital Bucharest.
18. Nero's Golden Palace in Rome was rediscovered during the Renaissance period, when a young man tripped, fell into a hole, and found himself in the cavernous, subterranean rooms of Nero's palace.
19. The Palace of Heavenly Purity was the residence of the Ming Emperor. The large space was divided into nine rooms on two levels, with 27 beds. For security purposes, every night, the Emperor randomly chose one of these beds.
20. Houska Castle in the Czech Republic has been constructed over a large hole in the ground that is allegedly a "gateway to Hell." Legend has it that when construction of the castle began, all of the inmates that were sentenced to death were offered a pardon if they consented to be lowered by rope into the hole.
21Ring Fort of Sandby Borg
The ring-fort of Sandby Borg in Sweden was the site of a 1,500 year-old mysterious massacre. During the European Migration Era in Sweden, during 5th Century B.C., the fort was swiftly attacked, with all its inhabitants killed and left where they fell. The fort was then abandoned, with no looting of goods or livestock nor burial of victims, and shunned up until modern times.
22. The 'Iolani Palace' is the acting palace of the Hawaiian monarchy. Constructed in 1882, they had electricity and telephones before the White House and Buckingham Palace.
23. The stairs at Lahore Fort in current day Pakistan were designed to allow royals to ride their elephants directly to the royal quarters.
24. Anyone could visit the palace and gardens of Versailles during the reign of Louis XIV, so long as they dressed neatly and in proper attire. Men were even allowed to rent a hat and sword at the entrance. Commoners were even able to file past the royal dining table and watch the king and nobles eat lunch.
25. During the construction of Japan’s Maruoka castle in 1576, the builders faced problems with stabilizing the castle’s base. It was decided that a human sacrifice was needed to appease the gods. A blind peasant woman volunteered to sacrifice herself to become a human pillar, in exchange for her son to be made a samurai.
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No mention of Scotty’s castle in Death Valley, California.