Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany isn't a real Medieval castle.

It's less than 150 years old and there are even photos of it being built.

But that isn't unusual — because lots of famous old buildings aren't as old as they seem... Neuschwanstein was built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria, an eccentric man obsessed with Medieval romances and myths.

Inspired by the operas of Richard Wagner, he had Neuschwanstein built in the 1870s as a literal fairytale castle where he could live in his own dreamworld.

A short history of tennis... Although there's evidence that a game sort of similar to tennis was played in Ancient Egypt and Greece, the story of modern tennis begins in 11th century France.

What happened? Monks started playing a game in monastery yards where they hit a ball back and forth.

Summer in art:

1. Woman with a Parasol by Claude Monet (1875) 2. Summer by Pieter Brueghel the Younger (1600)

Times change, jobs change, and technologies change... but some things never change.

A wonderful and witty snapshot of ordinary life in the Netherlands as it was 400 years ago.

Why are so many flags red, white, and blue?

It all started 452 years ago in the Netherlands... The study of flags is called vexillology, and it's a surprisingly interesting subject filled with stories both fabulous and bizarre.

Like how every single national flag in the world is rectangular... apart from the flag of Nepal:

Antoni Gaudí was born 172 years ago today.

He's one of the most beloved architects in the world, and that makes sense — his style is utterly unique.

But Gaudí only designed 17 buildings... Antoni Gaudí was born in Catalunya on the 25th June 1852.

He spent eight years training as an architect, and although involved in some projects at university, his first solo commission was designing... lamp posts.

For the Plaça Reial in Barcelona, in 1879:

Famous paintings and their real life locations:

1. The Church at Auvers by Vincent van Gogh (1890) 2. Mont-Saint-Michel by James Webb (1857)

Notice how Webb has made Mont-Saint-Michel more vertical, elongating the buildings and steepening the hill itself.

A common method used by artists to make real places more picturesque.

Cropped images make it impossible to tell how big a work of art really is.

And that's only one of the many ways that photos have totally changed the way we see art... Unless you go to a gallery, the only way to see art is online, on posters, or in books — pictures of the art rather than the art itself.

It's clearly a good thing that, thanks to the internet, art is more accessible than ever.

But it has led to some misleading impressions...

This Ancient Roman temple in Austria is not real.

It's a "fake ruin" built 250 years ago.

But it isn't unusual, because fake ruins are a whole subgenre of architecture — and there are hundreds of them around the world... These "Roman ruins" were designed by an architect called Johann Ferdinand Hetzendorf von Hohenberg under Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II.

They were built in 1778 at Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, and decorated to look authentic by a team of sculptors.

The best of Art Deco doors:

1. Fisher Building, Detroit (1928) 2. Chrysler Building, New York (1930)

This is Orvieto Cathedral, built 600 years ago.

It's the perfect example of an architectural style totally unique to Italy.

So here's a brief introduction to Italian Gothic Architecture — and what makes it different... When you think of "Gothic Architecture" you probably picture something like Rouen Cathedral.

Flying buttresses, large windows, soaring towers, gargoyles, and flowing stonework.

But Gothic Architecture, which emerged in the 12th century, developed differently in Italy.

A short history of flowers in art: Flowers are everywhere — there are several hundred thousand different species in the world.

So it makes sense that we've been depicting them in art since the dawn of civilisation.

Think of the stylised acanthus leaves of Greco-Roman architecture:

Munich was founded 866 years ago today.

So, to celebrate its birthday, here's a brief tour through one of the world's most beautiful cities... It was on the 14th June 1158 that Henry the Lion, Duke of Bavaria, founded a new city on the Isar River.

It was called München — and came to be known as Munich in English.

Little could he have known that, 866 years later, Euro 2024 would be kicking off in that very city.

You probably haven't seen this place before, even though it's older than the Pyramids.

It's called Mohenjo-Daro, in Pakistan, and it was one of the first major cities in human history.

So, from Bulgaria to Zimbabwe, here are some other ancient wonders you didn't know about... The world is a big place, and there are more things in it that you haven't heard of than you have.

That's obvious, of course, but easily forgotten.

To give just one example, here's Ġgantija, a colossal stone temple built five and a half thousand years ago in Malta:

England is filled with literally hundreds of colossal, ruined churches — but why?

It all started 500 years ago, with an unhappy marriage that ended up causing a revolution... If you travel through the English or Welsh countryside for long enough you'll eventually come across the ruins of abandoned monasteries.

Like Whitby Abbey, which dates back to the 8th century, standing on the cliffs above the North Sea.

What happened?

Frank Lloyd Wright was born 157 years ago today.

People usually call him the greatest American architect of all time — here's why... Frank Lloyd Wright was born in Wisconsin on 8th June 1867 and died in 1959.

So his life spanned immense changes, on a global scale, to pretty much every aspect of society.

Over the course of a seven decade career Wright designed 1,114 buildings, of which 532 were built.

This apartment block in Germany is one of the most influential buildings in history.

It looks normal now, but that's the point — it's nearly 100 years old.

Where did modern architecture come from? It all began with this building in the summer of 1927... Imagine yourself in the 1920s.

It was a maximalist world all about detail, decoration, and historical styles of architecture — plus exciting new movements like Art Deco.

Plenty of buildings were ugly or boring or filthy, but generally speaking things looked like this:

How did tourists get pictures before photography?

With "vedute", a genre of art all about highly detailed paintings of cities like Rome and Venice.

Before social media, this was how people showed off the places they'd been on holiday... Landscape painting wasn't always popular in European art — for a long time it wasn't even considered a proper genre.

They featured in the backgrounds of Medieval and Renaissance art, of course, but here the landscape was fundamentally the setting rather than the subject.

What makes Gothic architecture... Gothic?

Many things, but one of the most important is the famous flying buttress.

And they aren't just for show — here's how the flying buttress revolutionised architecture... When you think of "Gothic Architecture" what comes to mind?

Probably pointed arches, stained glass windows, gargoyles, and... flying buttresses.

But what is a flying buttress? Are they just for style? Or do they have a purpose?

We have been using bricks since 7,500 BC and we now produce more than 1 trillion of them every year.

Why? You can build almost anything with bricks, they're cheap, easy to make, and last for ages.

Bricks also look great — and there's a very specific reason why... We have been making bricks since the dawn of civilisation — literally.

Use of bricks as a construction material goes back to at least 7,500 BC, before the invention of writing or the wheel.

The Ancient Mesopotamians later used bricks to build their colossal ziggurats:

The first and last paintings of famous artists:

1. Vincent van Gogh 2. Claude Monet

View from Rouelles (1858) and The House through the Roses (1926)

By the end of his life Monet was going blind, but he continued to paint nonetheless. This was a man who loved colour, light, and flowers — even in his last days you can feel that love.

Diogenes was one of history's strangest (and funniest) philosophers.

He lived in a barrel, disrupted Plato's lectures, and made fun of Alexander the Great to his face.

But Diogenes wasn't just a joker — his ideas are as relevant now as they were two thousand years ago... Diogenes was born in a Greek city called Sinope, on the coast of modern Turkey, in 412 BC.

His father was in charge of minting coins, and Diogenes helped him secretly lower the amount of gold in these coins — a major crime.

So they were banished... but as Diogenes later joked: