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Yes, hello. How much is it to rent this luxury apartment atop the Eiffel Tower?

34 Secrets About Public Places That Your School Field Trip Didn’t Cover

February 24, 2024

Well, children, we were supposed to be on our way to the Island of the Dolls today, but not one of you got your permission slip signed by your parents. We guess none of them wanted you to experience hundreds of mutilated dolls possessed by a drowned girl! Pfft. Parents these days.

34

CRACKED.COM Westminster Abbey turned black from killer smog. Britain's greatest church was once more black and yellow than Wiz Khalifa in Pittsburgh. The cause of the church's severe discoloration was a thick yellow fog that smothered over 4,000 Londoners in '52. It took 20 years of restoration to get rid of the layers of toxic grime. — Source

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Venice

CRACKED.COM The Bridge Of Sighs was built for prisoners. That pretty Venice bridge-known for gondolas, honeymoons, and yes, appearing in Madonna's Like A Virgin video-was built to transfer prisoners from interrogation rooms to prison. It's named after prisoners sighing at their final view of Venice before being taken to their cells. — Source

32

CRACKED.COM Part of the University of Cambridge was built over a massive graveyard. Beneath the Old Divinity School at St. John's College lies one of the largest found burial grounds in all of Great Britain, with a staggering count of over 1,300 burials dating back to medieval times. A hospital stood opposite the graveyard, and used it to bury poor scholars and other wretched persons. — Source

31

CRACKED.COM The Great Wall of China is actually a great cemetery. It is estimated around 400,000 construction workers had died building the Great Wall, and were just as easily buried in its foundation, which earned the deserved moniker longest cemetery on Earth. — Source

30

The Supreme Court also has a basketball court. Storage space above the courtroom was turned into a gym with a basketball court in the 1940s. John Roberts used to play basketball with William Rehnquist there, and Sandra Day O'Connor organized yoga classes in the gym every day. CRACKED.COM — Source

29

NOT 2018 TOSHIBA HAPPY NEW YEAS TOSHIBA «ТОК HAPPY NEW YEAR A major building in Times Square is empty. It's the building where they drop the New Year's Ball - One Times Square. There's one tenant: a Walgreens on the ground floor. The building has been used as a gigantic, vacant advertising stand since 1992. It makes $23 million a year. CRACKED.COM — Source

28

The Leaning Tower of Pisa contains an empty tube. The Tower of Pisa is actually a bell tower for the nearby cathedral, and there's literally nothing inside it. Aside from the ginormous bell, of course. CRACKED.COM — Source

27

Radio City Music Hall has a swanky apartment. Radio City built it for its first impresario, Samuel Roxy Rothafel, who had brought in a ton of top-shelf acts. It became his bachelor pad and party venue. And today, it could be yours - it's been kept in top shape, and is up for rent. CRACKED.COM — Source

26

Under the Lincoln Memorial, there's a cavern with dirty graffiti. The Memorial is kept up by support beams, which are in a Moria-esque underground hall. And the construction workers must have been really bored, because they left it full of graffiti that's a mix of porn doodles and dirty words. One just says boobies. CRACKED.COM — Source

25

There's a subway station under Grand Central Station. It led directly into the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, so the well-to-do wouldn't have to mingle with the masses. It was used from the '30s to the '60s, when it was abandoned (except for a 1965 party by Andy Warhol), and it was eventually totally closed off. CRACKED.COM — Source

24

Volcano Visits

Thrihnukagigur Volcano in Iceland. This volcano near Reykjavik is the only one in the world you can go inside. At 700 feet deep, visitors must hike up to the crater's summit before hopping in an open cable lift that descends 120 feet inside the magma channel. CRACKED — Source

23

Centralia, Pennsylvania. The town sits on an underground coal mine fire that has been burning since 1962, so the ground is always warm. Poisonous smoke kills plants, and sinkholes have swallowed up pets, deer, and a young boy. The U.S. government ordered a total evacuation in 1984, but a handful of residents refused to leave. CRACKED — Source

22

The Capuchin Catacombs in Palermo, Italy. Built as a cemetery for monks, it is the largest collection of mummies in the world. When they outgrew the original cemetery, they exhumed the corpses and found they had been naturally mummified. (Relax, they stopped accepting bodies in 1880). CRACKED — Source

21

Wat Khunaram Buddhist temple in Thailand. The temple features the shrine of Luang Pho Daeng. Now known as the Mummy Monk, Daeng died in 1973, and wanted his body displayed as a reminder of the transience of human existence. CRACKED — Source

20

Fengdu Ghost City in China. F le With stone statues of demons desecrating humans, Ghost City is seen as the gateway to Diyu (the Chinese realm of hell). It's at the northern end of the Yangtze River, and you can participate in the annual festival that honors the spirits. CRACKED — Source

19

Les Catacombes de Paris. OSSEMENTS DES ANCIENS CIMETIÈRES DE LA TRINITE ET DE ST. LES (BOULEVARD SÉBASTOPOL) DEPOSES EN 1850 DANS 1. OSSUAIRE DE LOUEST ET TRANSFERT ES DANS LES CATACOMBES EN 7th 1859 The Catacombs of Paris is an underground cemetery with the skeletal remains of an estimated 6 million people. In 1810, skulls and bones were neatly stacked in this subterranean cavern that visitors can see today (Tuesday to Sunday from 10am to 8pm). CRACKED — Source

18

Isla de las Munecas in Mexico's ancient Xochimilco district. 10 are Sunland The Island of the Dolls is home to hundreds of mutilated dolls. Their origins are a mystery, but they are said to be possessed by a little girl who drowned in the area. The caretaker of the island was later found drowned in the same spot. CRACKED — Source

17

Bran Castle in Transylvania, Romania. This medieval region has a ton of gothic sites, but Bran Castle, the home of Vlad III Dracul (the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula) is the crown jewel. Built in 1377, it had 720,000 visitors in 2022 alone. CRACKED — Source

16

Mt. Rushmore was designed by a white supremacist. Gutzon Borglum, the man that sculpted Mount Rushmore, was a racist who had ties to the Ku Klux Klan and was deeply involved in their politics. Не said things like, I would not trust an Indian, and referred to African Americans as a mongrel horde. CRACKED.COM — Source

15

Coney Island

CRACKED.COM Coney Island is the site of a gruesome fire. SHOWING DIVERS AT WORK UNDER WATER 12 TONE HISTORICAL FASTESPAR EDUCATIONAL & AMUSING CONEY ISLAND'S BIGGEST FIRE DISASTER FIGHTING THE FLAMES AT DREAMLAND In 1911, flames engulfed Coney Island's grandest amusement park. Dozens of animals that were housed in the park were roaring loud enough that owners started shooting them to keep them from burning to death. One of the lions got out and ran through the streets with his mane on fire, and was shot 60 times before a fireman axed him down. — Source

14

The Eiffel Tower

CRACKED.COM The Eiffel Tower was a popular suicide spot. The Eiffel Tower holds a death toll of over 350 suicides, some of whom chose to hang themselves from the tower. Preventive barricades have since been built along with tightened security to preserve the lively image of the monument. — Source

13

CRACKED.COM The Gibraltar Point Lighthouse is the site of Toronto's first unsolved murder. Centuries ago, the keeper of the lighthouse vanished with nothing left of him but his blood stains on the lighthouse's wooden steps. It was rumored that he'd been brutally dismembered. A century after his disappearance, his remains were found scattered around the lighthouse grounds. — Source

12

CRACKED.COM The Little Mermaid Statue is constantly being mutilated. What is considered the Statue of Liberty of Denmark has been a target of gruesome vandalism since the '60s. The poor thing has been blown up, decapitated, had its arms sawn off, and been painted over several times, both blood-red and blue. — Source

11

CRACKED.COM The River Thames is full of bodies. The most famous river in England has been nicknamed by The Guardian The Watery Grave. It has some 60 dead bodies pulled out of it every year, averaging at one body a week. — Source

10

CRACKED.COM James Smithson is entombed in the Smithsonian. Secres la the shampry James Sellow who died at Sense of Society the N yeon In a crypt just inside the north entrance of the Smithsonian Castle lies the relocated remains of the institute's founding father, James Smithson. Не was a chemist who enjoyed studying things like human tears and snake venom. — Source

9

CRACKED.COM The Blue Mustang statue has tasted blood. Locals call him Blucifer. The red-eyed fierce-faced 9,000-pound sculpture at Denver International Airport actually killed its maker, Luis Jiménez, by falling on him and severing an artery in his leg. — Source

8

The Washington Monument has a tiny, hidden twin. A 12-foot replica of the Monument is buried right next to it. It was built in the 1880s as a surveyor's tool-they'd use its scale to verify readings. The ground level rose over time, and the Mini Monument was encased in a tube, buried, and forgotten. CRACKED.COM — Source

7

Underground tunnels criss-cross Los Angeles. They connect downtown LA's government buildings, and they're used for moving files securely. But they've also had other uses. For example, in the '50s and '60s, criminals were moved from jail to court through them. In 1960, a billion dollars of tax money were moved through them. CRACKED.COM — Source

6

There's a creepy secret chamber inside Mt. Rushmore. Its sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, wanted Mt. Rushmore to have a Hall of Records, where historic American documents would be stored. When he died in 1941, it was unfinished. In 1998, the government put a sealed titanium vault with copies of important documents in there. So he kinda got his wish. CRACKED.COM — Source

5

Disney World is hiding an abandoned island. Disney used it as a wildlife observatory, but shut it down in 1999 when they opened Animal Kingdom and moved all the animals there. Today, it's an overgrown jungle of empty animal cages, ruled by vultures (the actual kind, not the cartoon Disney kind). CRACKED.COM — Source

4

The highest floor of the Empire State Building is reserved for a chosen few. The 103rd floor, which is so secret it's usually not listed, is only open to the rich and/or famous. It's a small observatory with 360-degree views. Almost no sounds reach it, so there's near-total silence. CRACKED.COM — Source

3

The clock tower Harry Potter flew over has a fancy apartment. Inside the St. Pancras clock tower, there's an apartment with ridiculously high ceilings and two bedrooms. Unfortunately, since it's literally on top of a train station, neither bedroom can give you a good night's sleep. CRACKED.COM — Source

2

There are three tiny flagpoles on the Capitol. They're used for the Capitol Flag Program, through which you can buy flags flown over the Capitol. The flags fly on one of these flagpoles, not the real flagpole, for all of 30 seconds before they're packed and shipped. CRACKED.COM — Source

1

A luxury apartment sits at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Gustave Eiffel had it built for himself when the tower went up, and kept it secret for a long time. He'd get offered crazy sums for a night in it, but always said no. It didn't open to the public until 2015, 90 years after he died. CRACKED.COM — Source

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