Cleopatra's Needle in Westminster

You're standing on the Victoria Embankment by the Thames, in front of Cleopatra's Needle. Look up along that slender point of red granite. The stone came from the quarries near Aswan in Egypt. Pharaoh Thutmose III had it raised in Heliopolis around 1450 BC. So the name is a bit misleading: Cleopatra only enters the story much later.