Fourah Bay College in Freetown became a magnet for English-speaking Africans on the West Coast and remained the only European-style university in western Africa for more than a century.
The eleventh-century Tibetan translator of Buddhist texts, Rinchen Tsangpo, who brought Buddhism to the Western Himalaya, is credited with founding 108 temples in the region.
According to legend, the town of Tianshui was founded long ago when a crack opened in the Earth from which poured sweet water, creating a lake and springs that would never run dry.
The Pimería Missions were established to indoctrinate the indigenous, peoples of the Pimería Alta region, which straddles the Mexican state of Sonora and the American state of Arizona.
In 2001, after years of searching, archaeologists came upon the long-lost site of Helike, a Classical Greek city buried under meters of silt on the southwest shore of the Gulf of Corinth.
Among the most ornate eighteenth-century structures still standing in the historic center of Cairo, the Sabil Ruqayya Dudu is a rare example of Rococo-influenced Ottoman-period architecture.
The most important town in Kosovo, Prizren became the regional seat of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans in 1360, when Sultan Murad I extended the empire into Europe.
With its vast architectural remains, abundant wildlife, and idyllic location, the ancient port of Mtwapa is one of the most important sites on Kenya's Swahili Coast.
Overlooking the village of Hasbaya in south Lebanon, the Chehabi Citadel occupied a strategic location for the armies of the First Crusade, believed to have built its fortifications in the 11th century.
For more than two centuries Qikou, a unique terraced townscape carved into a steep hillside on the banks of the Yellow River, served as a vital trading point for river-bound freight.