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

Statue of Liberty

Image: Pierre Blaché

Location: New York City, New York

The iconic symbol of freedom and democracy, Lady Liberty stands tall on Liberty Island in New York Harbor. A fraternal gift from France in 1886, she welcomed immigrants and visitors to the United States for over a century with her torch held high , representing enlightenment and hope.

Originally, it was a brownish copper color, but after a few years of exposure to the elements, its iconic green patina—caused by the oxidation of its copper surface—began to spread. Also, did you know that her full name is actually "La Liberté éclairant le monde" , French for "Liberty Enlightening the World"?

2

Mount Rushmore

Image: John Bakator

Location: Keystone, South Dakota

Carved into the granite face of the Black Hills, Mount Rushmore features the colossal visages of four revered American presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln.

Although the monumental sculpture was never finished due to lack of funding (the original vision of sculptor Gutzon Borglum was that each president would be depicted from head to waist), it is still one of the most enduring symbols of the nation's founding principles and leadership.

3

Lincoln Memorial

Image: Kelli Dougal

Location: Washington D.C.

Honoring the 16th President of the United States, the Lincoln Memorial stands as a tribute to Abraham Lincoln's enduring legacy and his role in preserving the Union during the Civil War. An example of neoclassical architecture, it is built in the form of a classical temple , and the massive marble statue of Lincoln seated solemnly commands reverence upon entrance.

The memorial serves as a symbolic center for civil rights and has been the site of many historic speeches , most notably Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech in 1963.

4

Gateway Arch

Image: Chris Hardy

Location: St. Louis, Missouri

Considered by some to be the tallest human-made monument in the Western Hemisphere - and the tallest arch in the world - the Gateway Arch soars 630 feet above the Mississippi River, a tribute to America's westward expansion and the pioneering spirit of its people.

Made of stainless steel with reinforced concrete infill, the structure is built to withstand earthquakes and winds up to 150 miles per hour. Inside, the arch is hollow and contains a tram system that takes visitors to an observation deck at the top.

5

Washington Monument

Image: Andy He

Location: Washington D.C.

Dedicated to the nation's first President, George Washington, this towering obelisk stands at 555 feet, making it one of the tallest stone structures in the world - and for a brief period of time between 1884 and 1889, before the construction of the Eiffel Tower, it actually was the world's tallest structure.

Its cornerstone, a 24,500-pound marble block, was specially hollowed to hold a number of memorabilia , including items associated with the monument, George Washington, and various benevolent societies.

6

USS Arizona Memorial

Image: Kirby Yardley

Location: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

Built over the sunken remains of the USS Arizona, this memorial pays homage to the lives lost during the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Only accessible by boat, the solemn structure sits just above the sunken battleship without touching it , preserving the original wreckage intact.

To this day, drops of oil occasionally leak from the ship’s deteriorating oil tanks , forming oil slicks on the water’s surface that are often referred to as "the tears of the Arizona."

7

Crazy Horse Memorial

Image: Lauren Lopes

Location: Crazy Horse, South Dakota

A colossal endeavor still in progress, the Crazy Horse Memorial is a heartfelt tribute to the Lakota leader Crazy Horse , intended to honor the culture, tradition, and resilience of Native Americans.

When it is finally completed, it will be the largest sculpture in the world , standing at 563 feet high and 641 feet long.

8

Hoover Dam

Image: Ryan Thorpe

Location: Nevada/Arizona border

Although not technically a monument, the Hoover Dam undeniably stands as a testament to American ingenuity and resourcefulness. Completed in 1936, it was originally named Boulder Dam , but the association with President Herbert Hoover endured, leading to its eventual renaming in his honor.

Spanning the Colorado River between Nevada and Arizona, the Hoover Dam is a monumental feat of engineering and a vital source of hydroelectric power and water for the Southwest United States.

9

Bunker Hill Monument

Image: Siddharth Mallya

Location: Charlestown, Massachusetts

Standing tall on Breed's Hill in Charlestown, Massachusetts, the Bunker Hill Monument commemorates the Battle of Bunker Hill , one of the early clashes in the American Revolutionary War.

Constructed between 1825 and 1843, the granite obelisk rises 221 feet and is accompanied by a statue of Col. William Prescott , a celebrated commander and hero of the Revolutionary War. Prior to the construction of the Washington Monument, it was the nation's largest-scale memorial.

10

Golden Gate Bridge

Image: Leo_Visions

Location: San Francisco, California

Spanning the Golden Gate Strait and connecting San Francisco to Marin County, the Golden Gate Bridge is an enduring symbol of American engineering and inventiveness. Opened in 1937, the iconic suspension bridge stretches 1.7 miles, and the main cables that support the weight of the roadway are made out of over 80,000 miles of galvanized steel wire.

Its distinctive orange hue, known as International Orange , was carefully chosen by consulting architect Irving Morrow to both complement the natural surroundings and enhance visibility in the frequent foggy conditions of the bay.

1

Apollo 11 touched down with roughly 30 seconds of reserve fuel

As Eagle descended toward the Sea of Tranquility on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong looked out the window and realized the computer was guiding them straight into a field of car-sized boulders.

He took semi-manual control, tilting the module forward to search for a clearer patch of ground while Mission Control in Houston counted down the remaining fuel out loud . Sixty seconds. Then 30. Buzz Aldrin called out altitude and speed as dust kicked up by the engine made it nearly impossible to judge distance. Armstrong finally set Eagle down with somewhere between 20 and 25 seconds of fuel left before an automatic abort would have kicked in, a margin thinner than most people realize watching the calm broadcast years later.

2

The iconic lunar flag was an altered five-dollar store-bought banner

With less than three months before launch, NASA engineer Jack Kinzler was handed an unusual assignment: figure out how to make a flag look like it was flying on a world with no wind.

Kinzler, known around the Manned Spacecraft Center as Mr. Fix It, remembered watching his mother hang curtains as a child and sketched a horizontal rod that would run through the top of an ordinary nylon flag , letting it hang stiff instead of drooping.

3

Playtex seamstresses hand-stitched the Apollo spacesuits

In a former girdle factory in Dover, Delaware, women who had spent years sewing Playtex bras and girdles found themselves building the suit that would keep Neil Armstrong alive on the Moon.

NASA had tried stiff, engineered suits from aerospace contractors first, but nothing offered the mobility required for a human body. The International Latex Corporation, the company behind Playtex, won the contract instead, and its seamstresses stitched together 21 layers of nylon, Teflon-coated fabric, and rubber by hand, working to a tolerance of one 64th of an inch on ordinary Singer machines. No automated equipment could be trusted with a mistake that meant the difference between life and death in a vacuum, so the same hands that once sewed Cross Your Heart bras sewed history instead.

4

Ham the Astrochimp completed a suborbital flight in 1961

Three weeks of training at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico came down to one morning: January 31, 1961.

A three-and-a-half-year-old chimpanzee, known to engineers simply as Number 65, was strapped into a Mercury capsule atop a Redstone rocket that launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida. His job was to pull levers in response to lights, proving an astronaut's mind could still function under the crushing forces of launch. A malfunction pushed the flight higher and faster than planned, reaching 157 miles and landing far off course in the Atlantic. He survived, tired and dehydrated but unharmed , and only afterward was given the name Ham, for the lab that trained him. Three months later, Alan Shepard became the first American in space.

5

Michael Collins became the most isolated person in human history

While Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the lunar surface, their crewmate Michael Collins circled overhead alone in the command module Columbia.

For roughly 47 minutes of every two-hour orbit, the entire body of the Moon passed between Columbia and Earth, cutting off every radio signal from Mission Control and from his two crewmates below. Flight commentator Charlie Duke described it on the air: "not since Adam has any human known such solitude." Collins later wrote that he never actually felt lonely during those blackout stretches, only quietly aware that he was, by any physical measure, the single most isolated human being who had ever lived, with three billion people on one side of the Moon and just himself on the other.

6

The Soviet Union made the first lunar impact in 1959

On September 12, 1959, a Soviet spacecraft the size of a large beach ball lifted off from Baikonur, deep in the Kazakh steppe. Two days later, Luna 2 slammed into the Moon near the craters Aristillus and Autolycus , becoming the first human-made object to ever touch another world.

Engineers in Moscow had built in a strange detail: the probe carried small metal pennants stamped with the hammer and sickle, meant to scatter across the lunar surface on impact. The timing stung in Washington. Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev arrived in the United States for a state visit just days later, carrying a replica pennant as a gift for President Eisenhower, a not-so-subtle reminder of who had reached the Moon first.

7

Apollo 11 concluded the initial Space Race

In May 1961, President John F. Kennedy stood before Congress and made a promise that sounded impossible: the U.S. would land a man on the Moon and bring him home safely before the decade was out.

Eight years, several deaths, and one nearly disastrous fire later, Neil Armstrong stepped off the ladder of the lunar module Eagle on July 20, 1969 , and told millions watching on television that it was one small step for a man. Buzz Aldrin followed him down minutes later while Michael Collins orbited above in the command module. The landing settled a technological race that had begun with Sputnik in 1957, and for the United States, it closed the gap the Soviets had opened years earlier.

8

The lunar module was built without seats

Every extra pound sent to the Moon meant thousands of extra pounds of fuel needed to get it there, so NASA engineers stripped the lunar module Eagle down to its bare essentials, cutting anything that was not strictly necessary for survival.

One of the first things to go was seating. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin flew their roughly 60-mile descent to the lunar surface standing up , held in place by cables and foot restraints, much like subway commuters gripping a pole during rush hour. Standing also gave the astronauts a clearer view out the small triangular windows, which mattered enormously once Armstrong realized the automatic system was steering them toward a boulder field. The decision made purely for weight savings ended up helping save the landing itself.

9

Apollo 11 astronauts signed an official customs declaration upon return

After traveling nearly half a million miles round trip, the crew of Apollo 11 still had one more piece of paperwork waiting for them back on Earth.

On July 24, 1969, the day their capsule splashed down in the Pacific near Hawaii, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins signed a standard United States Customs form filed at Honolulu Airport. Under departure point, the document read simply Moon. Arrival was listed as Honolulu, Hawaii. In the cargo section, the astronauts declared moon rock and moon dust samples, treating a piece of another world the same way any traveler might declare a bottle of duty-free perfume. The form even asked about any condition on board that could spread disease, and the honest answer at the time was simply to be determined.

10

Apollo 8 astronauts captured the "Earthrise" photograph

On Christmas Eve of 1968, astronaut Bill Anders was aiming his camera at the gray, cratered surface below when something in the window caught his eye. Earth, blue and impossibly small, was rising over the lunar horizon.

Anders, Frank Borman, and Jim Lovell had just become the first humans to orbit the Moon, and none of NASA's flight plans had accounted for this moment. Anders grabbed a color film magazine and fired off the shot in a matter of seconds, later admitting the photo was never on the schedule. Back on Earth, the image ran in newspapers worldwide and is widely credited with helping launch the modern environmental movement, giving people their first real look at how fragile and alone their home planet truly is.