14 August: Cologne Cathedral

On this date in 1880 Cologne Cathedral was completed. 10 things you might not know about the Kölner Dom:

1. It took more than 600 years to build. The foundation stone was laid on 15 August 1248, by Archbishop Konrad von Hochstaden. When the towers were finally topped out in 1880, it was celebrated as a national holiday in Germany.
2. Talking of the towers, they're not the same height. The North Tower is 157.38 metres (516.33 feet) tall; while the South Tower is 7 centimetres (2.75 inches) higher.
3. The cathedral covers nearly 8,000 square meters of floor space and can hold more than 20,000 people. It is 144,58 meters long and 86.25 meters wide. The choir has the largest height to width ratio (3.6:1) of any medieval church.
4. Cologne Cathedral was the tallest building in the world between 1880 and 1884 until it was overtaken by the Washington Monument. It is still the second highest building in Cologne after the telecommunications tower and has the largest façade of any church in the world. It's the third biggest Gothic church in the world. Only Silvelle Cathedral in Spain and Milan Cathedral in Italy are bigger and also built in the Gothic style.
5. The reason the cathedral is there at all is because of the Three Wise Men. In 1164, the Archbishop of Cologne, Rainald of Dassel, acquired their relics, and it was decided a suitable shrine had to be built to put them in. The Shrine of the Three Kings inside the cathedral is said to contain their actual bones and has been a centre of pilgrimage since the Middle Ages. Even today there is an annual ceremony on 6 January (Epiphany) in which the public can pay their respects.
6. The cathedral was hit by bombs 14 times during the second world war. It proved, however, to be mostly bomb proof and didn't collapse. Repairs didn't take quite as long as the original construction – just 16 years, finishing in 1956. Some of the damaged parts were left as a memorial.
7. Cologne-based artist Gerhard Richter provided a new stained glass window in 2007 to replace the ones destroyed in the war. Some of the windows which survived and are still there date back to the 13th century.
8. Cologne Cathedral was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. In 2004 it was placed on the “World Heritage in Danger” list, the only Western site in danger, because of plans to build high rise buildings nearby which would have ruined the view. It was removed from the danger list in 2006 after limits were placed on the heights of nearby buildings.
9. The building is made of sandstone. It looks black because of the way sandstone reacts to pollution. Cleaning the façade is like painting the Forth Bridge. Once the workers finish, it's time to go back to the beginning again.
10. The cathedral has eleven church bells, four of which are medieval. The largest bell weighs 24 tons. It's official title is St. Petersglocke (Bell of St. Peter) but it is generally known as Dicke Pitter (Fat Peter). Peter only chimes on special occasions like Christmas and New Year. The bell was cast in 1922 and was the largest free-swinging bell in the world, until a new bell was cast in Innsbruck for the People's Salvation Cathedral in Bucharest.

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