1

2008 Beijing Olympic Games - Michael Phelps

Image: Thomas Park

Winning a gold medal in the Olympic Games is, by itself, a huge achievement and a dream come true for any elite athlete. Repeating this feat is something that very few have achieved, and doing so has elevated these individuals to legendary status.

Now, imagine winning not one, not two, but eight gold medals in a single edition of the Olympic Games . This unimaginable feat was accomplished by the now-famous swimmer Michael Phelps. This remains the greatest individual achievement in one edition of the Olympic Games by any Team USA athlete.

2

1936 Munich Olympic Games - Jesse Owens

Image: Braden Collum

Another legendary Olympic moment took place many years before Michael Phelps was even born, when Jesse Owens, a Black athlete, won four gold medals in the 1936 Munich Olympic Games.

Despite competing on very controversial ground at the time, Owens blazed his way to Olympic glory and secured his place in the pantheon of the greatest American athletes.

3

Cuba to Florida Swim - Diana Nyad

Image: Matt Hardy

If you see the distance between Miami and Havana on a map, it doesn’t seem all that far. That is until you start approaching and realize that there are 110 miles between these two places. Believe it or not, this journey has been swum three times. The first two crossings involved a shark cage and several short rests.

The third person to achieve this milestone was Diana Nyad, who completed the swim on her fifth attempt at age 64 in 2013 . Nyad used a protective jellyfish suit, shark divers, and electronic shark-repellent devices to achieve an "unassisted" swim.

4

50 Marathons in 50 Days

Image: Pietro Rampazzo

Running a marathon is an impressive feat of endurance and strength for almost any human being. Running two marathons in two consecutive days is nearly impossible for anyone. Now, imagine running 50 marathons across 50 American states in 50 consecutive days.

That incredible accomplishment was achieved by Los Angeles native Dean Karnazes , beginning with the Lewis and Clark Marathon in St. Louis on September 17, 2006 , and finishing with the New York City Marathon on November 5 . A bit too much, maybe?

5

1968 Mexico City Olympic Games - Bob Beamon

Image: Gabriel Sanchez

On the rarest of occasions, humans are capable of physical achievements that defy what the human body is capable of doing. During the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, Bob Beamon broke the world record for men’slong jump with an incredible jump of 29 feet, 2.25 inches . Yes, that is almost 30 feet.

There was a delay in posting the distance, and Beamon didn’t know what the metric figure that finally appeared on the board equated to in feet and inches. When a teammate told him he had jumped over 29 feet, he collapsed on the track from the realization of what he had accomplished.

6

2017 Australian US Open - Serena Williams

Image: Kelly Sikkema

Winning a world tennis championship is a significant achievement for any tennis player. That is, unless you are a tennis player so accomplished that winning these tournaments is as regular as anything. The list of people who do that is very short, and the names on it are all very well known.

One of those names is, without a doubt, Serena Williams. Possibly the greatest female tennis player ever, she won the 2017 Australian Open . This fact alone may not seem out of place for such an athlete. But what sets it apart is the fact that she did so while pregnant .

7

17 minutes without breathing - David Blaine

Image: Jakob Owens

How long can you hold your breath underwater? Trained individuals can achieve very impressive results in this field, but one feat that stands out is the one accomplished by American illusionist David Blaine, who, on September 8, 2008, set a world record for static apnoea, by holding his breath underwater inside a tank for 17 minutes and 4.5 seconds.

Blaine is best known for his high-profile feats of endurance and has set and broken several world records. These include standing for 35 hours on a 100-foot-high pillar only 22 inches wide in 2002 and sitting in a clear Perspex box for 44 days in 2003 without eating and drinking only water.

8

900 spin - Tony Hawk

Image: Devin Avery

In the world of skating, a 360 is the name given to a stunt performed by executing a mid-air spin on the board. This is a complicated trick, achieved only by very experienced skaters. A 720 is a stunt performed by doing not one, but two mid-air spins on the board. As one can imagine, this is exponentially more difficult than a 360, and very few people can pull off this stunt.

Now, if we mention a 900, you might guess where we are going. This involves not one, not two, but two and a half mid-air spins on the board. This insanely difficult stunt was first performed (at least publicly) by Tony Hawk, the skateboard champion, at the 1999 X Games, cementing his status as a skateboarding legend.

9

2008 U.S. Open - Tiger Woods

Image: Will Porada

Tiger Woods is a familiar name in the sports world. He has won 14 major golf championships and achieved a level of superstardom seldom seen in the game. However, the one we are choosing to highlight today displays an extraordinary amount of tolerance to pain in the face of competition.

During the 2008 U.S. Open, he played a total of 91 holes with a torn ACL and double stress fractures in his left leg . With a course set up to give players the toughest test of golf imaginable, the U.S. Open is hard enough as it is. Add in debilitating leg injuries, plus 19 extra holes (thanks to a playoff with Rocco Mediate), and you have one of the greatest showings of pain tolerance in the history of tournament golf.

10

El Capitan Free Solo Climb - Alex Honnold

Image: Jessica Tuttle

Imagine climbing a huge stone wall approximately 3,000 feet high in less than four hours. Now imagine doing that, without any kind of ropes or safety equipment. That is exactly what Alex Honnold did on June 3, 2017, when he made the first-ever free solo ascent of El Capitan by completing Alex Huber's 2,900-foot big wall route, Freerider, in 3 hours and 56 minutes.

The climb, described as "one of the great athletic feats of any kind, ever," was documented by climber and photographer Jimmy Chin and documentary filmmaker E. Chai Vasarhelyi, as the subject of the documentary Free Solo which, among other awards, won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2018.

1

A renovation project saved thousands of lives on 9/11

On September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m., killing 189 people. Few people know this part: the death toll could have been much higher. But there was a renovation project underway at the time of the attacks.

The Pentagon’s five-sided structure is divided into five "wedges," and workers had been renovating them one at a time. Flight 77 struck the wedge that had just been completed. Of the 4,500 people who normally worked in that section, only about 800 had moved back in. Without the reinforced construction and the incomplete occupancy, experts believe the casualties would have been catastrophically higher.

2

The Cold War and the hot dog stand

In the middle of the Pentagon’s five-acre center courtyard once stood a modest hot dog stand. According to a Cold War legend (one still retold by official Pentagon tour guides on every public tour), between the 60s and the 80s, Soviet satellite images tracked large groups of high-ranking military officials converging on that small building at the same time every day.

Soviet intelligence reportedly concluded the structure must be the entrance to some underground bunker in America. In reality, all it did was sell lunch. In 2006, the original stand was torn down, and a sandwich shop was built in its place.

3

Its construction began on September 11th, exactly 60 years before the attack

Builders broke ground on the Pentagon on September 11, 1941. That was exactly 60 years to the day before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that would strike the same building.

Construction had been ordered by Army Brigadier General Brehon Somervell, who wanted a permanent headquarters for the Defense Department to replace its then-17 scattered offices across Washington, D.C.

The project was extraordinarily ambitious: plans called for the world’s largest office building to be completed in just 16 months. In the end, the conception, design, and construction of the entire Pentagon building took a total of 15 months.

4

The same person oversaw its construction and the Manhattan Project

Colonel Leslie Groves of the Army Corps of Engineers took charge of Pentagon construction in August 1941. He worked six days a week and drove his team relentlessly, at one point employing more than 15,000 workers around the clock.

When the Pentagon was finished in January 1943, Groves was assigned to lead the Manhattan Project, America’s secret program to build the atomic bomb . His deputy, Captain Robert Furman, followed him into the Manhattan Project as chief of foreign intelligence. Together, the men who built the world’s largest office building went on to produce the weapon that ended World War II.

5

Why is it shaped like that?

The Pentagon’s iconic five-sided shape was the consequence of a geographic accident. The original site selected for the building, near Arlington Cemetery, **happened to be bordered on five sides by roads. **Architects designed the structure to fit those boundaries, producing a pentagonal floor plan. Then President Franklin D. Roosevelt intervened: worried the massive building would obstruct the view of Washington, D.C. from Arlington, he ordered the site moved to its current location along the Potomac River. But the five-sided design had already been drawn up, and nobody changed it.

6

It was the first desegregated building in Virginia

When the Pentagon was designed in 1941, segregation was the law in Virginia. Original plans called for doubled bathroom facilities: separate ones for Black and white employees, as required by Virginia statute. But President Roosevelt had signed Executive Order 8802 in June 1941, prohibiting racial discrimination in federal employment and government contracting.

As a federal building, the Pentagon was exempt from Virginia law. It became the only building in the state where segregation was not enforced. A fully desegregated federal workplace that opened in 1943. The doubled bathrooms were built anyway, as the plans were too far along to revise, but were never used as separately designated spaces.

7

Its construction was surprisingly frugal and incredibly fast

Ground broke on September 11, 1941, and construction finished on January 15, 1943, just 16 months later. More than 15,000 workers were on site around the clock. Wartime office shortages were so severe that employees moved into completed wings before the rest of the building was finished. Steel was too scarce to use extensively, so builders relied almost entirely on reinforced concrete. The 689,000 tons of sand and gravel required came directly from the nearby Potomac River, cutting transportation costs. The project was budgeted at $35 million, but the final bill was $63 million, which would translate to over $900 million in today’s dollars.

8

You can walk between its farthest points in only 7 minutes

The Pentagon is the world’s largest low-rise office building: 6.5 million square feet of space, which is three times the total floor area of the Empire State Building. Each of its five outer walls is 921 feet long. It has 7,754 windows and 17.5 miles of corridors. Approximately 26,000 military and civilian employees report for work there every day.

Despite that scale, the building’s concentric ring design is so efficient that it takes only about seven minutes to walk between its two farthest points.

9

The man who secretly lived inside its walls

During construction, Colonel Groves drove his deputy, Captain Robert Furman, so relentlessly that Furman rarely left the building. To cope, Furman had contractors build him a small, windowless apartment hidden inside the walls of the Army’s Ordnance Division. In this private room, he could sleep and shower without leaving the premises.

When construction ended and personnel dispersed, knowledge of the hidden room was never passed on to building management. Months later, when Furman returned to Washington on Manhattan Project intelligence business, he found the apartment undiscovered and exactly as he’d left it.

For over a year, he would slip back to the Pentagon, pop open a wall panel, spend the night, and emerge in the morning with his suitcase. He was finally caught in 1943 and forced to surrender the keys. It was never disclosed whether the secret apartment was maintained or eventually absorbed back into the official floor plans.

10

It houses over 30 restaurants, including everyone's favorite chains

The Pentagon feeds roughly 26,000 people a day, and its dining options read less like a military headquarters and more like a mall food court. The main Concourse Food Court, which opened in September 2009 and seats 875 people, is the largest of several dining areas.

Confirmed chains currently inside the building include McDonald’s, Five Guys, Subway, Popeyes, Starbucks (multiple locations), Dunkin’ (two locations), Panera Bread, Taco Bell, Panda Express, Baskin-Robbins, Potbelly, Jamba Juice, and Moe’s Southwest Grill, among others. The building also houses a CVS pharmacy, a florist, a jeweler, and a dry cleaner. In the summer of 2024, Potbelly became the first restaurant to open in the center courtyard. Yes, the very spot where the legendary Cold War hot dog stand once stood.

1

Clean your lens

Image: Mika Baumeister

We’ll start with probably the most essential—and somehow most overlooked—tip: take a moment to clean your smartphone’s camera lens. Over time, it can accumulate dust and smudges, which can result in hazy or blurry photos.

Give it a quick wipe with a soft, lint-free cloth . It can make a significant difference in the clarity of your shots.

2

Investigate your camera app

Image: Brett Jordan

Almost every single smartphone comes with a default camera app that’s user-friendly and packed with features. Take some time to explore it , learn how to switch between photo and video modes, and familiarize yourself with settings like Portrait Mode, Night Mode for low-light shots, and Panorama Mode for landscapes.

3

Use gridlines

Image: Jonathan Kemper

Gridlines allow you to center your focal points and enhance the visual appeal of your photos. Most mobile camera apps let you turn them on easily. These gridlines strategically divide your screen into thirds , both horizontally and vertically, adding balance and symmetry to your shot .

4

Focus and exposure control

Image: François Genon

Focus and exposure are two of the most important settings you can adjust in a manual camera to achieve different effects in photography. Fortunately, both functions are available on most modern smartphones.

By playing with different focus and exposure points, you can highlight a specific subject against a blurred background or ensure a well-balanced shot in difficult lighting conditions.

5

Lighting

Image: Ben White

Always try shooting in natural light, often referred to as available light, whenever the opportunity arises. Natural light gives a gentle, even illumination that can significantly enhance the quality of your photos.

Avoid harsh, direct sunlight, which can create intense and unflattering shadows, potentially leading to overexposed or underexposed areas. If you're shooting in low light, rest your phone on a flat surface to stabilize it for long exposures.

6

Play with composition

Image: Eaters Collective

Experiment with different angles and perspectives to enhance your subject. Don't be afraid to get low or high for a unique viewpoint. Also, pay attention to what’s in the background and eliminate any distractions that might detract from your subject.

7

Take pictures often

Image: Ferdinand Stöhr

Practice makes perfect. Since your phone is always with you, it’s easy to integrate photography into your daily routine. Whether you snap a selfie or take a few shots on your way to work, there’s no wrong way to be a smartphone photographer. Great photos often come from everyday life.

8

Take many shots

Image: The Free Birds

Long gone are the days when you had only 36 exposures in your camera and had to choose each shot carefully. One of the best things about smartphones is that you can take as many photos as you want, and there is no need to print them to see the results . This makes it much easier to learn and improve as you go.

9

Avoid digital zoom

Image: Redd Francisco

Digital zoom generally produces poor-quality images, even on the best smartphones. Avoiding it is one of the basic photography tips for taking better photos. Instead of using a digital zoom, simply move closer to your subject to maintain image quality.

10

Use HDR

Image: Kote Puerto

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, and it’s a common feature on many smartphones. It enhances detail in both dark and light areas to provide a more balanced exposure . HDR prevents the sky from becoming too bright or the ground from appearing too dark, making it especially useful for landscape photography.

11

Set a high resolution

Image: TheRegisti

Simply put, the higher the resolution of your photo, the better quality it is . When taking pictures, try to get as close to the subject as possible, rather than zooming in. Take advantage of the higher pixel count.

12

Aspect ratio

Image: Alice Donovan Rouse

The aspect ratio determines the width and height of your photograph . The standard 4:3 ratio is versatile, but you can also choose widescreen 16:9 for a cinematic look or square 1:1 for Instagram-ready shots.