According to tradition, Rome was founded in 753 BC.  This Iron Age hamlet of shepherds became the capital of the Roman Empire, later of the Roman Catholic Church, and since 1870, the capital of modern Italy.  No other city can claim to have been the “caput mundi” or head of the world, for so many centuries. 

Rome holds another unusual world record; it’s home to more ancient Egyptian obelisks than anywhere else in the world including Egypt, which counts only a handful. In Rome today there are 13, although apparently there were 48 at the height of the Empire.