What was the original vision for the Ryugyong Hotel, and why did it never become the world's tallest hotel as planned?

 A 105-story pyramid was supposed to crown Pyongyang and become the world’s tallest hotel. Instead, it spent about 16 years as an empty concrete shell.

The Ryugyong Hotel stands in Pyongyang as a 105-story pyramid-shaped tower.

The original vision was tied to a very specific moment. Construction began in 1987, when prestige architecture had become part of Cold War competition. South Korea was preparing to host the 1988 Seoul Olympics and was also seeing major commercial development. North Korea responded with its own showpiece projects for the 1989 World Festival of Youth and Students in Pyongyang. The Ryugyong was supposed to be the crown jewel.

Its planned specifications were deliberately grand:

• roughly 330 meters tall
• 105 floors
• thousands of guest rooms, often reported at around 3,000
• revolving restaurants or observation spaces near the top
• a design visible from nearly anywhere in the city

The architecture itself was symbolic. Its three sloping wings meet in a sharp pinnacle, giving it the look of a giant mountain or rocket. That was not accidental. The building was intended to project modernity, ambition, and technical confidence.

So why did it never become the world’s tallest hotel as planned? Because the project ran into a collision between engineering ambition and national economic reality.

The decisive break came in the early 1990s. North Korea lost crucial Soviet support after the collapse of the USSR. The country entered a severe economic crisis marked by shortages of fuel, materials, electricity, and foreign currency. A supertall luxury hotel became impossible to finance and even harder to justify. Construction largely stopped around 1992, leaving the concrete shell unfinished for about 16 years.

That delay mattered because “world’s tallest” is a moving target. Even if Ryugyong had been finished near its intended date, later hotel towers elsewhere would eventually have surpassed it. But Ryugyong did not even get the chance to hold the title in practice, because it never opened as a functioning hotel during the period when the claim was most plausible.

The Ryugyong Hotel appears as an unfinished concrete structure in Pyongyang in 1989.

There were also persistent doubts about construction quality. Outside observers long questioned the state of the concrete shell and the viability of the interior systems. In 2008, Egypt’s Orascom helped complete the exterior cladding, which transformed the building from a famous ruin into a finished-looking tower. But exterior completion is not the same thing as an operable hotel. Reports over the following years suggested occasional work, lighting displays, and speculative opening plans, yet no normal full-scale hotel operation emerged.

That is what makes the Ryugyong Hotel so fascinating. It was designed as a triumphant symbol of arrival, but history turned it into almost the opposite: one of the world’s best-known examples of architecture outrunning economics. In skyline terms it succeeded; in the original sense, as the world’s tallest hotel welcoming guests, it never really existed.

Which is the fastest aircraft in the world, ever made?

 The answer to this question depends heavily on what you consider qualifies as an aircraft, and that distinction changes everything. The Space Shuttle Discovery holds the record for the fastest manmade object to fly as an aircraft.

The Space Shuttle was unique in that it took off on the back of a rocket but re-entered as an aircraft. Orbital velocity is over 17,000 mph, and spacecraft such as Discovery re-enter with the majority of this velocity.

This translates to speeds of nearly Mach 25 in the atmosphere, a speed unmatched by any other aircraft. From the moment the Shuttles graze the upper edge of the atmosphere, they begin to strike an aircraft-like angle of attack to generate lift. The reason why Discovery in particular claims the record for the fastest aircraft speed is its Hubble Telescope Missions, which were the highest orbits flown by the Shuttles.

For a manned, powered aircraft flying under its own thrust, the record belongs to the North American X-15. It holds the official world record for the highest speed ever reached by a manned, powered aircraft, having flown at Mach 6.70 (4,519 mph) on the 3rd of October 1967. The X-15 set speed and altitude records in the 1960s, reaching the edge of outer space and returning with valuable data used in aircraft and spacecraft design. Pilots that flew this rocket powered beast were awarded Astronaut's Wings, and the research gained from this program helped greatly in making the Space Shuttle possible. The X-15 was launched by a B-52 and then accelerated, which leads some to argue it does not count since it did not take off on its own.

If you also consider unpiloted aircraft, the X-43 reached a speed of Mach 9.8 (12,144 km/h; 7,546 mph) using scramjet technology with rocket assist. NASA built this unmanned aircraft and the key distinction is that it was uncrewed.

For a jet-powered aircraft that could take off and land on its own and fly operational missions, the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird is the clear answer. The SR-71 can achieve Mach 3 plus speed and still holds several official air speed records. The U.S. Air Force has never revealed the ultimate maximum speed of the SR-71, but the ease with which it re-established records when broken suggests much higher operational speeds had been achieved. None were ever shot down by enemies, which speaks to its ability to simply outrun threats during missions.

What are some rare photos of world history?

 Some rare/interesting photos of world history:

One of Japan’s last samurai, in the late 1800s

A selfie in 1920; a century ago!

Dubai Airport and its surrounding area in the ‘80s

A photograph of a British woman, Margaret Neve, born in 1792. The photo is dated 1902.

The world’s first photograph, taken in France in 1826.

The world’s first self-portrait, taken in Philadelphia in 1839.

Also taken in 1839, this is the first photo with people in it, taken in Paris.

The first photo taken from above! In 1860

The first photo of Earth, as seen from a view from the Moon.

When Bill Clinton met President Kennedy.

Some Rare Animals That Seem to Come From Another World

 1.The Mary River Turtle possesses a valuable skill of double respiration and wears a striking fringe.

2.The Sea Angel — a small swimming sea slug who is a predator despite its size.

3.The Comet Moth — one of the biggest butterflies in the world found in Madagascar.

4.The Spanish Dancer Fish

5.The Purple Vampire Crab does look like the mythical creature it’s been named after.

6.The Exotic Praying Mantis clearly says it all — aliens are among us.

7.The Albino Pink Belly Sideneck can be easily mistaken for a snack.

8.The Vulturine Guineafowl has a dazzling suit ready to impress.

9.The Southwestern Spiny-Tailed Gecko has skin that seems to be covered in black and white caviar.

10.The Vietnamese Mossy Frog looks like it has been eaten and then spat out.

11.The Hammerhead Bat is so unique, we do believe it came from another planet

12.The Strobing Cuttlefish is so cute and pretty you actually want to cuttle, oops, cuddle it!

13.The Troll-haired Bug has a hairdo all punks would envy so much.

14.The Greater Sage Grouse does look greater than other birds.

15.A weird deep sea fish, Lamprey, has a face only a mother could love.

16.The Sailfin Dragon, whose main problem now is extreme habitat loss.

17.Marine Iguana — the only aquatic iguana in the world!

18.The rare Albino Whale — a mass of beauty, power, and grace at the same time

19.The Kakapo — a large, flightless, nocturnal, ground-dwelling parrot of New Zealand.

20.The Pacific Spine Lumpsucker has a special cup on his belly to attach to surfaces.

21.The Glass Butterfly proves that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

22.The rare Blue Owl whose feather color is as mesmerizing as the color of its eyes.

23.The White Cuscus (don’t confuse it with the food couscous) is a marsupial, meaning that it has a pouch

24.The Wild Albino Wallaby would definitely win the cuteness overload contest.

25.The rare Albino Sulcata Turtle looks so diabolical, you’d be scared regardless of its small size.

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What makes Virender Sehwag different from other cricketers of the world?

• Scoring 100 before team score reaches 150
• Only man to start innings with boundary for 28 times
• 25 times this Delhi nawab reached 100/200/300 by six or four
• No one dares to hit six on 295 but viru does it
• Need guts to deny single on 199 when you are playing with last batsmen
• Century in maiden first class match batting at no. 7 and also maiden test century at no. 6
• After cricket,hitting sixes and fours on Twitter

What are some of the most interesting world records ever held?

 1.Largest Shoe

World’s largest shoe can be found in Turkey standing at 5.5 meters long and 1.83 meters high.A Shoe with the ability to fit over 30 people within it leathery interior.

2.Most No Of Spoons On a Face

Aaron Caissie from Canada, he managed to balance 17 spoons on his face at one time.He achieved this on the set of Lo Show dei Record, in Milan, Italy, on 18 April 2009.

3.Most No of Snails On a Face

In 2007 Fin Kehler had 43 snails put on his face for a total of 10 seconds to break the previous record of 36.

4.Farthest Eyeball Pop

Measured on the set of “Guinness World Records: Primetime” in Los Angeles Kim Goodman popped her eyeballs .43 inches out beyond the confines of her eye sockets.She lives in Chicago, Illinois

5.Stretchiest Skin

Because of a rare disorder known as Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome Gary Turner of the United Kingdom can stretch his skin up to 6.25 inches.Gary Turner is an English professional mixed martial artist who fought in the Cage Rage and K-1 promotions. Turner was the K-1 UK Grand Prix champion in 2003 and 2004.

6.Longest Fingernails On Both Hands

This is one of those records that can take several decades to break but Melvin Booth and Lee Redmond made the sacrifice and achieved combined fingernails lengths of 9.05 meters and 8.65 meters.

What is one battle, if the result was flipped, would have changed the world the most?

 History does not necessarily progress slowly. It happens that one day can make a difference. Among such days was the Battle of Blenheim on August 13, 1704.

Louis XIV the king of France was the most powerful man in Europe at the time. He was so mighty that people referred to him as the Sun King. His army was enormous and he enjoyed a great partnership with Spain. They both were on the verge of taking most of Europe. Without someone to halt them the balance of power would fade away.

However, there was one man who made a decision: John Churchill.

He was aware of the fact that the French army was about to conquer Austria. Churchill acted hurriedly instead of waiting. He led his army through Europe that was approximately 250 miles. The procession was rapid and silent, and the French never dreamed that he was approaching.

As the fight commenced, Frenchmen applied the old technique, which was to halt, aim and shoot.

The soldiers of Churchill did just the contrary. They charged at a good pace with swords and before the French could respond, they struck them. Churchill went to the extent of moving his forces through a muddy swamp that the French imagined that no army could pass.

This surprise passing the French lines, caused their army to fall.

This triumph prevented the conquest of Europe by France. It was also used to save the future of the British Empire and then the establishment of the United States.

The success of Churchill was such that he received the great Blenheim Palace. It would later become the birthplace of another legendary leader, Winston Churchill, who would also lead to the salvaging of Europe many years later.