Episode Details

In 1804, a French army built a 36-meter-tall grass-covered sand pyramid in the Netherlands in just 27 days to keep troops entertained—a bizarre tribute to Napoleon’s glory. Named Marmontberg at first, it was later renamed Pyramid of Austerlitz by the King of Holland, though it’s actually in Woudenberg, not Austerlitz. After the French left, the structure decayed: its wooden top collapsed, and a stone obelisk was added in 1894—only to start leaning. Despite a major 2004 restoration, Dutch weather keeps causing trouble, with grass sliding off. To stabilize it, engineers drove hundreds of posts into the sides, and the leaning obelisk was given a new base… still tilted on purpose, as a living monument to history’s quirks.

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