Natural Wonders
Ancient Wonders
Modern Wonders
Middle Aged Wonders
Picture Gallery
Modern Wonders of the World              By: Anna
I studied the Modern Wonders in our web-site project The Wonderful Wonders of the World. The Modern Wonders are The Washington Monument (in Washington D.C.); The Empire State Building (in New York); The Eiffel Tower (in Paris, France);The Taj Mahal (in Northern India); The Hagia Sophia (in Constantiople, Turkey); The Great Sphinx of Giza (in Egypt); and   The Leaning Tower of Pisa (in Pisa, Italy). Hope you enjoy this page!
                  Washington Monument
By: Anna
The Washington Monument is a national memorial in Washington D.C.  The monument was built in the memory of George Washington, the first president of the United States (1789-1791).
The Washington National Monument Society was formed in 1833 to raise funds for the memorial to George Washington.  Congress gave the society permission to begin building in 1848.  On July 4, 1848, the cornerstone was set with the same trowel used by George Washington in 1793 to set the cornerstone of the Capitol.
The original design was by American Robert Mills.  Other architects later changed it considerably.  The Washington Monument is built like a hollow shaft raising to 169.29 meters (555 feet 5 1/8 inches) above the ground.  The outside is faced with white marble from Maryland, and the top is formed by a capstone of aluminum.  The inside walls have stone blocks donated and engraved by states, foreign governments, and private individuals.  The Washington Monument has an elevator and an iron stairway, which has 898 steps going to the top.  
Political wrangling and the American Civil War stopped construction on the monument for a period of time.  The building was finally finished in 1884.  The Washington Monument was dedicated on February 21, 1885.  It was opened to the public three years later, in 1888.
            Empire State Building
The Empire State Building was probably the world`s most famous building. It is located in New York City.  It was built by more than 3,000 workers in a record time less than 18 months.  The Empire State Building has 102 levels, and is 1,250 feet (381 meters) above ground.  It weighs more than 350,000 tons.  From 1931-1970`s it was the world`s tallest building.  For many people it is the greatest building in the world!
                  Eiffel Tower
The Eiffel Tower was the world`s tallest structure when it was built in 1889.  It stands 984 feet (300 meters) above the ground.  It was designed as a cross-braced latticed girder with minimum wind resistance.  The Eiffel Tower is a wrought-iron landmark.  It was an early example of wrought-iron building on a huge scale.  It has three observation decks, each at a different level.  The first level includes a restaurant.  The lower part has four arched legs on stone or brick piers.  The legs turn inward until they join in a lone tapered tower.  The Eiffel Tower, without modern broadcasting antennae, is 300 meters (984 feet) high.  A weather station, radio station, and TV transmission antennae, along with a suite of rooms used by Alexander Eiffel, are near the top of the tower.  The Eiffel Tower has both stairs and elevators.  It is about 6300 metric tons (about 7000 tons).
 The Eiffel Tower was designed and built by a French civil engineer, Alexander Gustave Eiffel, for the Paris World`s Fair in 1889.  He built it for the 1889 Industrial Development Exhibition to honor the French Revolution.  The Eiffel Tower was a revolution in itself a revolution in engineering.  Eiffel built the tower to show how iron and steel could be used for tall structures.  About two million people visited the Eiffel Tower in the first year.  It is still the most famous landmark in Paris.
                      Taj Mahal
The Taj Mahal has been called the most beautiful building in the world.  It is a white marble tomb in Arga, one of the largest
cities in Uttar Pradesh, a state in Northern India.  The Indian ruler,
Shah Jahan, had it built for his wife, Mutaz Mahal, who died in
1629.  The Taj Mahal took about 20,000 workers to complete it between 1632-1650.  The inside is inlaid with jade, crystal and other treasures.  
Around the Taj Mahal there are gardens and canals.  In each corner is a minaret, a tower of worship.  On the outside of the tomb there are passages from the Koran, the Muslim holy book.  The bodies of the emperor and his
wife are still in a vault below the building.  
Hagia Sophia
Hagia Sophia was the most important church of the Byzantine Empire for almost 1,000 years.  After Rome was taken over by a federation of German tribes, the center of Christianity turned to the Byzantine Empire (East Roman Empire).  In about A.D. 532, Justinian, the Byzantine Emperor, ordered the building of a huge great church in Constantinople (the capitol city of Turkey, at the time).  Hagia Sophia is Greek for "Holy Wisdom".  
This great church was a "rallying point" for Christianity.  The original church, Hagia Sophia, was destroyed when competing sides of fans for chariot racing grew into a major riot.
 The two architects who designed and built the new church were Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorous of Miletos.  These architects were dominant builders and wizards in geometry and mechanics.  The design was radically new with the interior of one huge open space.  Instead of a long building with a pillar supported roof, Hagia Sophia is a series of domes.  The main dome is 100 feet wide and over 200 feet high.  Drawing on Roman ways for building domes-a huge shallow central dome was supported by half domes that acted as buttresses.  The domes are surrounded on all sides by an outer shell of allies and galleries that let the roof arch out for open space.  Bays with high windows let light in at any time of day or year.  Hagia Sophia took five years to build. This was considered an architectural feat to complete such a massive building in such a short amount of time.  Visitors were astonished and said it was "seemingly suspended as if by a golden chain from heaven" (Wood, 1997).
Hagia Sophia became a grand stage for complex order of Byzantine church services.  In A.D. 557, an earthquake destroyed a section of the church.  Luckily, Isidorous was still alive to oversee reconstruction.  In 1453, Constantinople was captured by the Ottoman Turks.  These Turks added tall, thin towers named minarets to the outside.  The Turks modified the inside to originate a grand Islamic Mosque (mosk)- a Moslem house of worship.
                The Great Sphinx of Giza
Ancient Egypt sculptors carved large stone statues of kings or gods.  A Sphinx is a mythical creature of old Greek Mythology.  The Greek word sphinx originally meant an imaginary evil monster.  Sphinxes were often made to honor kings or queens.
The most remarkable sphinx is the Great Sphinx of Giza.  Egyptians  built the Sphinx about 4,500 years ago.  The Great Sphinx looks powerful, and was built to guard the pyramids of Giza as well as the people buried in them.  The Great Sphinx has a human head and a lion`s body.  The width of the Great Sphinx`s face is 13 feet 8 inches (4.17 meters) wide.  The head and body of the Sphinx were carved of giant limestone rock.  The paws and legs are built from stone blocks.  The Sphinx is about 240 feet (73 meters) long and about 66 feet (20 meters) high.  It wears a royal headdress and lies near the pyramid of King Khafre.
Sand has often buried the Sphinx up to its neck.  Workers last cleared away the sand in 1938.  King Thetmose IV of Egypt was the first person to have the sand cleared away, after dreaming that the god, Horus, asked him to do so, in the 1400`s BC.