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27 Martin Luther King Jr. quotes to remember under the new president.

Five days after Americans celebrate and honor Martin Luther King Jr., Donald Trump will be inaugurated as our 45th president.

It's been nearly 50 years since King was assassinated for his role as a leader in the fight for civil rights and racial equality. As we enter this new era — one in which, for many, it feels like King's dream of America is far out of reach — it's more important than ever to reflect on what King truly stood for.

Here are 27 quotes from the man himself that show us his actual ideal vision of America — and how far we still have to go before we get there.

Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington, D.C. Photo by AFP/Getty Images.

1. King reminded us to stand up and speak out against the injustices we see in our world.

"To accept passively an unjust system is to cooperate with that system; thereby the oppressed become as evil as the oppressor," King wrote in his essay "Three Ways of Meeting Oppression."

"Noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. ... To accept injustice or segregation passively is to say to the oppressor that his actions are morally right."

2. It's better to be frustrated with an unjust world than to just accept it.

In his sermon at Temple Israel of Hollywood, King said, "There are some things in our nation to which I’m proud to be maladjusted, to which I call upon all men of goodwill to be maladjusted until the good society is realized. ... I never intend to adjust myself to segregation and discrimination. I never intend to become adjusted to religious bigotry. I never intend to adjust myself to economic conditions that will take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few. I never intend to adjust myself to the madness of militarism and the self-defeating effects of physical violence."

3. Just because something is legal, that doesn't make it right, and not everything that is illegal is wrong.

"One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws," King said in "Letter From a Birmingham Jail."

4. How do you tell the difference between right and wrong? It's easy.

King explained this simply, again in "Letter From a Birmingham Jail": "Any law that uplifts the human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust."

He expanded on this idea in his "Rediscovering Lost Values" sermon: "Some things are right and some things are wrong. Eternally so, absolutely so. It's wrong to hate. It always has been wrong, and it always will be wrong. It's wrong in America, it's wrong in Germany, it's wrong in Russia, it's wrong in China. It was wrong in 2000 B.C., and it's wrong in 1954 A.D. It always has been wrong, and it always will be wrong."

5. Everyone deserves access to health care.

"Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane," King said at the Second National Convention of the Medical Committee for Human Rights in 1966.

6. Everyone also deserves to earn a living wage, have a safe work environment, and not be exploited by their bosses.

"The labor movement did not diminish the strength of the nation but enlarged it," King said in a 1961 address to the AFL-CIO, "by raising the living standards of millions, labor miraculously created a market for industry and lifted the whole nation to undreamed-of levels of production. Those who attack labor forget these simple truths, but history remembers them."

7. King believed every person has a right to food and shelter.

"Why should there be hunger and privation in any land, in any city, at any table when man has the resources and the scientific know-how to provide all mankind with the basic necessities of life?" King said in his 1964 Nobel lecture, "The Quest for Peace and Justice."

8. King wanted people to know there are fair ways to distribute wealth within the framework of democracy.

"You can use your powerful economic resources to wipe poverty from the face of the Earth," King said in "Paul's Letter to American Christians."

"God never intended for one group of people to live in superfluous inordinate wealth while others live in abject deadening poverty. God intends for all of his children to have the basic necessities of life, and He has left in this universe 'enough and to spare' for that purpose. So I call upon you to bridge the gulf between abject poverty and superfluous wealth."

9. Money is not a measurement of virtue, righteousness, or meaning.

"I am afraid that many among you are more concerned about making a living than making a life," King also said in "Paul's Letter to American Christians."

10. People have a right to vote. Period.

"All types of conniving methods are still being used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters. The denial of this sacred right is a tragic betrayal of the highest mandates of our democratic tradition," King said in his "Give Us the Ballot" speech — and it's still true.

"... Give us the ballot, and we will no longer have to worry the federal government about our basic rights."

11. From employment to marriage to education to health care and beyond, civil and social rights matter for all people.

"If America is to remain a first-class nation, it cannot have second-class citizens," King preached in "The Rising Tide of Racial Consciousness."

12. We can't pass laws to make people get along with or accept people, but we can and should pass laws to protect the oppressed from harm.

(Lookin' at you, HB2 and First Amendment Defense Act.)

"It may be true that morality can't be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. It may be that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can restrain him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important also,"King said in a 1966 speech at Southern Methodist University.

13. The most morally bankrupt people are the ones concerned more about getting caught than about doing something wrong in the first place.

"In a sense, we are no longer concerned about the Ten Commandments. ... Everybody is busy, as I have said so often, trying to obey the eleventh commandment: 'Thou shalt not get caught,'" King said in "Keep Moving From This Mountain."

14. King understood the U.S. is not a Christian nation.

Yes, he was a minister, but King was also a firm believer in separation of church and state.

"I endorse it [the Supreme Court's decision to outlaw prayer in school]," King explained in a 1965 interview with Playboy. "I think it was correct. Contrary to what many have said, it sought to outlaw neither prayer nor belief in God. In a pluralistic society such as ours, who is to determine what prayer shall be spoken and by whom? Legally, constitutionally or otherwise, the state certainly has no such right."

15. King also wanted people to know religion is no excuse for scientific ignorance.

"Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals. They are complementary," he wrote in his book "Strength to Love."

"Science keeps religion from sinking into the valley of crippling irrationalism and paralyzing obscurantism. Religion prevents science from falling into the marsh of obsolete materialism and moral nihilism."

16. King was pro-choice and valued the many good things Planned Parenthood contributes to the world.

"Family planning, to relate population to world resources, is possible, practical, and necessary," he said in his acceptance speech for the Margaret Sanger Award from Planned Parenthood.

17. King spoke passionately about our economic struggles being largely the same, regardless of skin color.

"All too often when there is mass unemployment in the black community, it's referred to as a social problem, and when there is mass unemployment in the white community, it's referred to as a depression. But there is no basic difference," he said in his "Other America" speech from 1968.

"Most of the poverty stricken people of America," he said later in the speech, "are persons who are working every day, and they end up getting part-time wages for full-time work. ... This has caused a great deal of bitterness. It has caused a great deal of agony. It has caused ache and anguish. It has caused great despair, and we have seen the angered expressions of this despair and this bitterness in the violent rebellions that have taken place in cities all over our country."

18. This is why King believed that white laborers and black civil rights activists should work together toward their shared goals.

"Our needs are identical with labor's needs: decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old-age security, health, and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community," he said in a speech to the AFL-CIO.

19. Protests and riots aren't a problem. They're symptoms of bigger, systemic issues.

"A riot is the language of the unheard," King said in "The Other America." "And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity."

20. There's never a correct "time" or "way" to achieve justice and change.

"I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was 'well timed' in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation," King said in "Letter From a Birmingham Jail." "For years now I have heard the word 'wait!' It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This 'wait' has almost always meant 'never.' We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that 'justice too long delayed is justice denied.'"

21. Michelle Obama may have perfected the catchphrase "When they go low, we go high," but it was central to King's beliefs as well.

"We must not seek to defeat or humiliate the enemy but to win his friendship and understanding," he said in "Loving Your Enemies," urging us all to resist our natural instincts toward pettiness and spite. "At times we are able to humiliate our worst enemy. Inevitably, his weak moments come and we are able to thrust in his side the spear of defeat. But this we must not do. Every word and deed must contribute to an understanding with the enemy and release those vast reservoirs of goodwill which have been blocked by impenetrable walls of hate."

22. Everyone deserves empathy and compassion.

From "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence":

23. Although he was committed to nonviolence, King also made it clear: You cannot be moderate in the face of oppression and hate.

"The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be," King said in "Letter From a Birmingham Jail." "Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?"

24. King warned of the dangers of giving power to thin-skinned egomaniacs, too.

"The individual who is self-centered, the individual who is egocentric ends up being very sensitive, a very touchy person," King said in "Conquering Self-Centeredness." "And that is one of the tragic effects of a self-centered attitude, that it leads to a very sensitive and touchy response toward the universe. These are the people you have to handle with kid gloves because they are touchy, they are sensitive. And they are sensitive because they are self-centered. They are too absorbed in self and anything gets them off, anything makes them angry."

25. The U.S. president should be held to a higher standard of diplomacy, humility, and temperament.

As he said in his Emancipation Proclamation Centennial Address, "No president can be great, or even fit for office, if he attempts to accommodate to injustice to maintain his political balance."

26. A society is built up by people working together.

"No matter where you stand, no matter how much popularity you have, no matter how much education you have, no matter how much money you have, you have it because in this universe helped you to get it," King said in his speech about self-centeredness.

"And when you see that, you can't be arrogant, you can't be supercilious. You discover that you have your position because of the events of history and because of individuals in the background making it possible for you to stand there."

27. "All we say to America is, 'Be true to what you said on paper.'"

As King said in "I’ve Been to the Mountaintop":

It's more important than ever that we honor King's legacy.

Maybe if we start to hold ourselves to that higher standard he believed in, we can finally turn his dreams into reality and make a better America for everyone.

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Science

The 'world's slowest experiment,' going for nearly 100 years, is still endlessly fascinating

It takes nearly a decade for one drop of this liquid to fall.

upload.wikimedia.org

John Mainstone was the custodian of the Pitch Drop Experiment for 52 years.

Because we use water all the time, most of us have an intuitive sense of how long it takes a drop of water to form and fall. More viscous liquids, like oil or shampoo or honey, drop more slowly depending on how thick they are, which can vary depending on concentration, temperature and more. If you've ever tried pouring molasses, you know why it's used as a metaphor for something moving very slowly, but we can easily see a drop of any of those liquids form and fall in a matter of seconds.

But what about the most viscous substance in the world? How long does it take to form a falling drop? A few minutes? An hour? A day?

How about somewhere between 7 and 13 years?

pitch drop experiment, tar pitch, solid or liquid, physics, world's longest experimentPitch moves so slowly it can't be seen to be moving with the naked eye until it prepares to drop. Battery for size reference.John Mainstone/University of Queensland

The Pitch Drop Experiment began in 1927 with a scientist who had a hunch. Thomas Parnell, a physicist at the University of Queensland in Australia, believed that tar pitch, which appears to be a solid and shatters like glass when hit with a hammer at room temperature, is actually a liquid. So he set up an experiment that would become the longest-running—and the world's slowest—experiment on Earth to test his hypothesis.

Parnell poured molten pitch it into a funnel shaped container, then let it settle and cool for three years. That was just to get the experiment set up so it could begin. Then he opened a hole at the bottom of the funnel to see how long it would take for the pitch to ooze through it, form a droplet, and drop from its source.

It took eight years for the first drop to fall. Nine years for the second. Those were the only two drops Parnell was alive for before he passed away in 1948.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

In total, there have been nine pitch drops in the University of Queensland experiment. The first seven drops fell between 7 and 9 years apart, but when air conditioning was added to the building after the seventh drop, the amount of time between drops increased significantly. The drops in 2000 and 2014 happened approximately 13 years after the preceding one. (The funnel is set up as a demonstration with no special environmental controls, so the seasons and conditions of the building can easily affect the flow of the pitch.)

The next drop is anticipated to fall sometime in the 2020s.

pitch drop experiment, tar pitch, solid or liquid, physics, world's longest experimentThe first seven drops fell around 8 years apart. Then the building got air conditioning and the intervals changed to around 13 years.RicHard-59

Though Parnell proved his hypothesis well before the first drop even fell, the experiment continued to help scientists study and measure the viscosity of tar pitch. The thickest liquid substance in the world, pitch is estimated to be 2 million times more viscous than honey and 20 billion times the viscosity of water. No wonder it takes so ridiculously long to drop.

One of the most interesting parts of the Pitch Drop Experiment is that in the no one has ever actually witnessed one of the drops falling at the Queensland site. The drops, ironically, happen rather quickly when they do finally happen, and every time there was some odd circumstance that kept anyone from seeing them take place.

The Queensland pitch drop funnel is no longer the only one in existence, however. In 2013, Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, managed to capture its own pitch drop on camera. You can see how it looks as if nothing is happening right up until the final seconds when it falls.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Today, however, with the internet and modern technology, it's likely that many people will be able to witness the next drop when it happens. The University of Queensland has set up a livestream of the Pitch Drop Experiment, which you can access here, though watching the pitch move more slowly than the naked eye can detect is about as exciting as watching paint dry.

But one day, within a matter of seconds, it will drop, hopefully with some amount of predictability as to the approximate day at least. How many people are going to be watching a livestream for years, waiting for it to happen?

PoorJohn Mainstone was the custodian of the experiment for 52 years, from 1961 to 2013. Sadly, he never got to witness any of the five drops that took place during his tenure. Neither did Parnell himself with the two that took place while he was alive.

John Mainstone, pitch drop experiment, university of queensland, physicsJohn Mainstone, the second custodian of the Pitch Drop Experiment, with the funnel in 1990.John Mainstone, University of Queensland

Sometimes science is looks like an explosive chemical reaction and sometimes it's a long game of waiting and observing at the speed of nature. And when it comes to pitch dripping through a funnel, the speed of nature is about as slow as it gets.


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Education

Gen Z are becoming accountants and it's for reasons that might surprise you

In totally Gen Z style, it's for a good cause.

Images via Canva

Young accountant, goat farmer.

Look, there are certain jobs that aren't at the top of the "dream list." You don't often meet 14-year-olds who, when asked, "What do you wanna be when you grow up?" answer: pencil pushers! But in a world of influencers and content creator wannabes, Gen Z (or at least some of them) is ready to get serious.

When many think of the Zoomer generation (born between 1997 and 2012), there are a few things that come to mind. These folks are characterized by wanting to make a difference in the world and leave it better than how they found it, but they're also not naïve. When it comes to practicality, Gen Z is all about making the most of the ever-changing world—especially the financial market.

According to an article by writer Preston Fore for Yahoo! Finance, the accountants from the Boomer generation (and there are millions of them) are retiring, leaving a huge gap. "The industry is facing a talent shortage crisis. While it’s been lamented as one of America's most boring jobs and headed down a path of extinction, Gen Z is realizing the six-figure career opportunity."

accountant, money, work, jobs, boomers, gen z, workforceSeason 8 Nbc GIF by The OfficeGiphy

Smart thinking. But in typical Gen Z fashion, many are combining their logical desire for fail-safe employment with actually making the world a better place. One way is volunteering to help others with the VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance) program—which helps provide free tax consultation to those in need. The IRS is working with a handful of universities to help aspiring accountants in college get their feet wet AND make a difference.

Fore notes the story of Alana Kelley, a third-year student at Oregon State University. She has already helped many with their taxes, saving them much-needed money in these trying times. "One was a goat farmer who had only a landline and no access to the Internet. Another was a young woman who was financially supporting her sister. Kelley was able to help them obtain a life-changing $6,000 back in refunds."

VITA has been around for over 50 years, and Gen Zers are genuinely making use of it. Fore shares, "Last year alone, an army of more than 280 CSUN students helped over 9,000 low-income taxpayers claim nearly $11 million in tax refunds and $3.6 million in tax credits—plus save them over $2 million in tax preparation fees."

taxes, calculation, accountants, money, finance jobsFiguring out our finances may be getting easier. Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

Many Redditors are backing the idea. On the subreddit r/accounting, someone asks, "Gen Z is making accounting cool again?" As expected, a few commenters push back on the "again" part. A few more respond to the aforementioned article with suspicion, as though the IRS is paying for it. But one person defends it: "VITA was a very cool program for both audit and tax aspiring accounting student to join. Most of the successful accountants I've known joined VITA. It's also led by younger students these days, so it's even more well-known within the Gen-Z students group." Another got straight to the point: "We just want money and free time bro."

Accounting isn't the only occupation Gen Zers seem to be drawn to. As there are fewer guaranteed roads to success, some Zoomers are skipping traditional college altogether and instead training to become plumbers, electricians, and other vocations that don't need a hefty degree. An article for the New York Post cites a recent study showing that a lot of folks of the Gen Z generation were interested in blue-collar work. "The survey of 2,091 people aged 18 and over found that Gen Z was becoming the 'toolbelt generation' because of the shifting attitudes and soaring cost of a college education."

plumbers, trades, vocations, work, gen z Plumbing Plumber GIF by Family GuyGiphy

With higher tuition and way less of a safety-net, many are thinking long-term, and if they can find a way to make a positive impact at the same time, all the better.


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Fatherhood

Dad and daughter relationships perfectly  explained in 10 paintings

The bond between dads and daughters is amazing.

All illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

It's hard to truly describe the amazing bond between dads and their daughters.

Being a dad is an amazing job no matter the gender of the tiny humans we're raising. But there's something unique about the bond between fathers and daughters. Most dads know what it's like to struggle with braiding hair, but we also know that bonding time provides immense value to our daughters. In fact, studies have shown that women with actively involved fathers are more confident and more successful in school and business.

You know how a picture is worth a thousand words? I'll just let these images sum up the daddy-daughter bond.

A 37-year-old Ukrainian artist affectionately known as Soosh, recently created some ridiculously heartwarming illustrations of the bond between a dad and his daughter, and put them on her Instagram feed. Sadly, her father wasn't involved in her life when she was a kid. But she wants to be sure her 9-year-old son doesn't follow in those footsteps.

"Part of the education for my kiddo who I want to grow up to be a good man is to understand what it's like to be one," Soosh told Upworthy.

There are so many different ways that fathers demonstrate their love for their little girls, and Soosh pretty much nails all of them.

Get ready to run the full gamut of the feels.

1. Dads can do it all. Including hair.

parenting, dads, daughters, fathers, art, artworkA father does his daughter's hairAll illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

2. They also make pretty great game opponents.



parenting, dads, daughters, fathers, art, artwork, chessA father plays chess with his daughterAll illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

3. And the Hula-Hoop skills? Legendary.



parenting, dads, daughters, fathers, art, artwork, hula hoopA dad hula hoops with his daughterAll illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

4. Dads know there's always time for a tea party regardless of the mountain of work in front of them.



A dad talks to his daughter while working at his deskAll illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.


5. And their puppeteer skills totally belong on Broadway.



A dad performs a puppet show for his daughterAll illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.


6. Dads help us see the world from different views.



A dad walks with his daughter on his backAll illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.


7. So much so that we never want them to leave.



a dad carries a suitcase that his daughter holds ontoAll illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.


8. They can make us feel protected, valued, and loved.



A dad holds his sleeping daughterAll illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.


9. Especially when there are monsters hiding in places they shouldn't.



A superhero dad looks over his daughterAll illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.


10. Seeing the daddy-daughter bond as art perfectly shows how beautiful fatherhood can be.



A dad takes the small corner of the bed with his dauthterAll illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.


This article originally appeared nine years ago.

fathers
Motherhood

34-year-old mom learns how to ride a bike for the first time alongside her 6-year-old daughter

"I discovered that we’re never too old, too late, or too far gone to try something new."

Photo by KBO Bike on Unsplash

Mom learns how to ride a bike at 34 alongside her 6-year-old daughter.

Learning how to ride a bike is a huge milestone in childhood. Battling through the challenge of balance while pedaling and proper steering to find yourself cruising on a bike is an accomplishment to be celebrated. But not everyone can say they mastered bike riding young.

Instagrammer Sazan Hendrix (@sazan) opened up to her followers about her experience learning to ride a bike when she was 34 years old. The journey challenged her role as a mom, and how she pushed past her own ego about failure and embarrassment to accomplish her goal.

"One year ago, I learned how to ride a bike! Yup at 34, with my 6-year-old cheering me on (and teaching me, if we’re being honest ha)," she wrote in the post's caption. "I discovered that we’re never too old, too late, or too far gone to try something new. Consider this your sign. What is something you want to accomplish this year!? 🥳"

In the post, Hendrix shared that she had always been scared of riding a bike, but decided to conquer it when her six-year-old daughter Teeny decided she was ready how to learn. "Suddenly, I didn't want to just watch her do it. I wanted to go alongside her," she wrote.

So, she went for it. But it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. She struggled to learn, and that brought up an internal battle. "But I was so in my head. Every fall made me feel like a failure. I couldn't master it. Week after week, I practiced. And week after week, I got nowhere," she shared.

She continues to explain how her hardship challenged her not to give up just for herself, but also for her daughter. "I felt defeated. Embarrassed. I was moments away from giving up. But I couldn't because she was watching. So I had to keep going," she wrote. "And in the process of learning, we both fell...together. Scraped knees. Bruised egos. Wobbly starts. But I think watching me try, fail and get back up again quietly told her, 'You can too.'"

The story didn't go the way she thought. While she struggled to master riding, her daughter Teeny got it. And her daughter became her biggest cheerleader. "'Mommy, just watch me and copy my footsteps!' So I did. That same day, the day she mastered it...I humbly did too," she explained. "We rode side by side, our wheels spinning in sync, like a moment heaven had written just for us."

Hendrix goes on to describe how parents are, most times, the ones doing the teaching when it comes to their kids. But not so in this case. "My daughter taught me. She reminded me: you're never too young or too old to try something new, face a fear, or keep pedaling after you fall."

On another slide, she shares that since then, she has shared so many biking adventures with her family. The experience made her a better mom. "Best of all I get to carry this story in my pocket. Holding onto it for the days when my kids reach a mountain that feels too big. I'll get to say: 'Remember when Mom learned how to ride a bike at 34?'" she wrote.

The experience also healed Hendrix's inner child who struggled to believe she could learn to ride and made it so that her daughter Teeny got to meet the little girl inside her. "So here's your sign. Go try the thing. Pick up the hobby. Do it scared. Laugh while you learn. You're not too late. You're right on time," she ended the post.

Her vulnerable post had a huge impact on her followers.

"😭😭😭😭 I'm crying. I'm 34 and I still don’t know how to ride a bike, never was taught though I had one growing up. This is inspiring," one wrote.

Another added, "Saz, not you making me cry with this wholesome story about Teeny giving your inner child permission to learn something new. 🥹😭"

And another shared, "What a beautiful core memory that you both will always remember. 😭😭😭"

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History (Education)

The mind-blowing engineering of a 13th century clock controlled entirely by water

Want to see a fountain with 12 water-spewing lions tell you what time it is?

Jebulon (Public domain)

Alhambra palace in Granada, Spain is an architectural masterpiece and engineering wonder.

Modern life is filled with so many incredible innovations, it's enough to make your head spin. But as we marvel over the latest technologies, it can be easy to forget that humans have been engineering and creating remarkable things for millennia.

The pyramids in Egypt. The Colosseum and the Parthenon. Teotihuacan and Machu Picchu. We can point to many famous ancient wonders that demonstrate the advancement of civilizations around the world, but some slightly newer architectural wonders also provide a glimpse into humanity's ability to figure things out.

Alhambra palace, fortress, water system, Spain, ancient technologyThe Alhambra sits atop a plateau overlooking Granada, Spain.Ввласенко

The Alhambra is a palace and fortress in Granada, Spain, that was built between 1238 and 1358 and was home to sultans of the Nasrid dynasty. A celebrated example of Islamic architecture, the Alhambra is now a tourist site, but in its early centuries, it helped Granada remain unconquered by Christian crusaders for far longer than the rest of Spain. Its massive complex sits atop a plateau, making it hard for invaders to breach its fortress walls.

But the Alhambra's beauty and defensive strength are only part of its allure. Visitors who walk through the grounds will notice something that seems unlikely considering the palace's flat location high above the river—water features galore.

The Alhambra has pools, baths, fountains, and gardens—and featured even more of them in its prime. But how? Via an intricate system of medieval pipes and channels and hydraulic engineering that enabled not only pools and baths, but heated flooring, steam rooms, and perhaps even an incredible water-operated clock.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

The Fuente de los Leones (Fountain of Lions) is a central feature of the palace. Just looking at it you wouldn't imagine it was a clock, but there is a serious hypothesis that it was and that it ran completely on water.

A circular fountain sits in its center surrounded by 12 lion statues facing outward. The clock hypothesis posits that the original fountain pool drained and filled on a 12-hour cycle, with 12 holes in the pool positioned in a graduating spiral, each one connected by a pipe to a lion's mouth. As a central pipe filled the fountain pool, the water reached each hole on an hourly basis, making water pour out from the corresponding lions' mouths. When water poured from the first lion, it was 1:00, when it poured from the first and second lion, it was 2:00, and so forth. Once the pool filled and reached 12:00, a syphoning mechanism triggered by the height of the water caused the pool to drain, and the cycle began all over again.

(To see how this clock and water system would have worked in action, see minute 4:56 in the Primal Space video above.)

fountain of lions, lion water clock, fuente de los leones, the alhambra, engineeringFountain of the Lions at the Alhambra, GranadaJebulon (Public Domain)

A restoration project in the early 2000s to mid 2010s brought the fountain back to life, but not as a clock. The fountain has been changed many times over the centuries, and no one knows for sure what the original design was.

The fountain is just one part of the whole elaborate Alhambra water network. Water from the fountain flowed out to four channels that led to spa-like bathing rooms, which featured a cold plunge, warm pools, and heated floors thanks to water flowing through copper stoves underground. They even had steam release pipes to create a steam room.

baths inside the Alcazaba, Alhambra, granada, spain, waterworks Remains of baths inside the Alhambra AlcazabaR Prazeres

But one of the other impressive engineering feats of the Alhambra water system was pushing water up a six-meter wall. Without modern water pressure technology, how did they do it? The Primal Space video above shows a kind of whirlpool pump in which a vortex adds air to the water, making it lighter and easier to push up the pipe vertically. However, the illustration in the video appears to be missing an outlet pipe at the bottom that a diagram from "The Mastery in Hydraulic Techniques for Water Supply at the Alhambra" published in The Journal of Islamic Studies shows, which makes the mechanics seem more plausible.

At the time, Alhambra had of the most sophisticated hydraulic networks in the world, bringing water from the river nearly a kilometer below the site and keeping it flowing through the property in gravity-defying ways. What an incredible feat of engineering and ingenuity.

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