18th August: International Lighthouse Day

It's International Lighthouse Day, so here are 10 things you might not know about lighthouses:

1. The first documented lighthouse was the Pharos of Alexandria, Egypt, built around 280 B.C. It stood more than 350 feet tall until an Earthquake destroyed it in the 1300s. This lighthouse gives its name to the study of lighthouses: pharology.
2. The world's oldest working lighthouse, La Coruna, stands at the northwest tip of Spain. The Romans built it early in the second century A.D. It's also called the Tower of Hercules.
3. The oldest UK lighthouse was built by the Romans in about 183AD, in Dover. The oldest one to still be working is Flamborough Head lighthouse.
4. Keeping a lighthouse was an arduous task before the days of electricity. The lamp had to be lit at sunset and put out at dawn, and checked several times during the night, often involving climbing up to 200 steps. During the day, the keeper would have to clean and polish the lenses and the windows. In foggy weather they would have to operate a fog signal as well. Not to mention danger from storms - it wasn't uncommon for lighthouse keepers to die on duty - and mercury poisoning from the substance the lamps were floated in. Despite this, it was one of the first jobs that the US government made available to women in the 19th century.
5. Nowadays, most lighthouses are automated and not manned at all. In the US there is just one manned lighthouse, on Little Brewster Island at the entrance to Boston Harbor, built in 1716. It was the first lighthouse to be built in the US; the British blew it up in 1776, but it was replaced in 1783 and still functions. It is kept manned largely for sentimental reasons.
6. The tallest lighthouse in the UK is Skerryvore, built in 1844 off of the west coast of Scotland, at 48 metres (157 ft). The shortest is believed to be Berry Head lighthouse in Devon at just 5 feet tall.
7. The country with the most lighthouses is the USA. The state with the most lighthouses is Michigan, with 115 around the Great Lakes.
8. The first lighthouse to be built at sea was the Smeaton Eddystone lighthouse, built in 1756-9, off the coast of Devon, UK, to warn mariners of the highly dangerous Eddystone Rocks. Before the lighthouse, sailors would hug the coast of France to avoid them, but that was almost as dangerous.
9. The Statue of Liberty is a lighthouse. It was the first one in the US to use Electricity. Despite its size and distinctive structure, the actual light in the torch was not very strong and efforts to make it brighter didn't work - so it was deactivated as a lighthouse in 1902.
10. There was an old Roman lighthouse known as the Tour d'Ordre at Boulogne, France which had 96 doors.