[00:00.00]Notre Dame Cathedral in the French capital of Paris is set to reopen to the public Sunday after a five-year-long rebuilding project.
[00:13.17]The Cathedral had been badly damaged in a fire in 2019.
[00:19.77]The Roman Catholic religious center is considered a jewel of Gothic building design, a symbol of Paris and is a popular site to visit.
[00:35.22]The cathedral took 182 years to build between the 12th and 14th centuries.
[00:44.42]It holds some surprising stories.
[00:48.70]Here are five special things to know about this famous Parisian site:
[00:56.39]In front of the cathedral, a metal and stone marker in the road describes the place as the "starting point of the roads of France.''
[01:10.11]This sign marks the starting point for measuring distances between Paris and other cities across the country.
[01:20.99]The marker was placed in 1924, but the idea of the cathedral as the center of the nation dates to 1769.
[01:34.06]King Louis XV thought there should be a central site for France's growing system of roads.
[01:44.16]That idea tied the nation's geography to its heart in Paris.
[01:51.45]Those frightening stone statues on Notre Dame might seem ancient, but not all of them are what they appear.
[02:03.01]The gargoyles are monster-shaped elements used to direct rainwater away from the building.
[02:11.90]They have been around since the time of the cathedral's construction.
[02:16.91]But the monster-like creatures often seen in photos and movies are chimera, and they are much newer.
[02:28.07]In 1841, the French government asked the architects Eugène Viollet-le-Duc and Jean-Baptiste Lassus to repair the then-collapsing building.
[02:44.40]Viollet-le-Duc added these frightening-looking statues to make the cathedral seem more mysterious.
[02:54.86]He drew ideas for the chimera from Victor Hugo's famous book The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
[03:04.36]How to tell them apart? Gargoyles resemble horizontal spikes coming out of the facade and have spouts to permit rainwater to flow out.
[03:19.20]During the French Revolution, there were protests of religious centers.
[03:25.78]In 1793, revolutionaries took away the cathedral's religious symbols and renamed it "Notre-Dame de la Raison," or, in English, "Our Lady of Reason."
[03:42.34]During that time, the cathedral held events celebrating science and new ideas and, for a short time, it was even used to store the alcoholic drink called wine.
[03:58.22]Religious services started again in 1795 under the rule of Napoleon I.
[04:08.86]In 1792, revolutionaries also cut the heads off 28 statues from the front of Notre Dame, thinking the statues were of French royalty.
[04:24.70]They were really representations of ancient kings of Judah, from stories in the Bible, the Christian holy book.
[04:34.62]The heads were thought lost forever.
[04:38.23]But in 1977, workers working in a courtyard in Paris uncovered hundreds of pieces of stone sculptures.
[04:50.40]Experts confirmed they were the missing heads of Notre Dame's kings of Judah statues.
[04:59.13]Today, 22 of the heads have been repaired and are shown at the Cluny Museum in Paris.
[05:08.97]The 2019 fire that almost destroyed Notre Dame caused a serious health risk.
[05:17.54]When the flames melted the top of the building, large amounts of harmful lead dust were released into the air and came down across Paris.
[05:30.33]Officials found there were no rules to measure the danger of outdoor lead dust.
[05:38.55]This was not just a Paris issue - major cities like London and Rome, and even the World Health Organization - do not have guidelines for outdoor lead pollution.
[05:55.64]The Notre Dame fire forced officials to take a closer look at their safety standards.
[06:03.83]It took four months for the city to complete an extensive cleaning of the city's streets even as visitors and the citizens of Paris walked around the cathedral every day.
[06:20.45]Now that you know these five things, you can enjoy seeing the photos of the new Notre Dame when it opens to the public.
[06:32.35]I'm Caty Weaver.
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Words in This Story
symbol - n. an action, object, event, etc., that expresses or represents a particular idea or quality
gargoyle - n. a strange or ugly human or animal figure that sticks out from the roof of a building (such as a church) and is used to cause rainwater to flow away from the sides of a building.
chimera - n. a monster from Greek mythology that breathes fire and has a lion's head, a goat's body, and a snake's tail
resemble - v. to look or be like
horizontal - adj. positioned from side to side rather than up and down; parallel to the ground
spike - n. a long, thin rod that ends in a point and is often made of metal
façade - n. the front of a building
spout - n. a tube, pipe, or hole out of which a liquid flows
royalty - n. members of a royal family
courtyard - n. an open space that is surrounded completely or partly by a building or group of buildings
flame - n. the hot, glowing gas that can be seen when a fire is burning
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