The Seven Natural Wonders of the World
The Seven Wonders of the Modern World
The 20th century has provided spectacular advances in design, engineering, and construction which have allowed humanity to create an array of monumental structures. And from these, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), with help from experts around the world, selected these wonders: the Empire State building, the Itaipu Dam, the CN Tower, the Panama [...]
The Seven Underwater Wonders of the World
A noted marine explorer named Jacques-Yves Cousteau wrote: “It is all strange, unearthly, and yet familiar. Strange because the sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonders forever.” Diving is becoming a much more popular sport as humans become more fascinated with the diverse ecosystems of the deep. Coral reefs, [...]
The Northern Lights
Northern lights, or Aurora borealis brings together two mythological deities – Aurora, the Roman goddess of the dawn, and Boreas, Greek god of the north wind – to describe an event witnessed mostly at night in the high northerly latitudes. An identical phenomenon, the aurora australis, occurs in the high latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere, [...]
Paricutin Volcano
On the afternoon of February 20, 1943, Dionisio Pulido, a farmer in the Mexican state of Michoacán, was readying his fields for spring sowing when the ground nearby opened in a fissure about 150 fee long. “I then felt a thunder,” he recalled later, “the trees trembled, and is was then I saw how, in [...]
The Harbor of Rio de Janeiro
At the beginning of the 16th century, the Portuguese explorers who sailed down Brazil’s coast kept tarck of their discoveries, and the days of the year, by naming the former for the latter. On New Year’s Day, 1502, they glided toward a narrow opening in the coastline, guarded by fabulously shaped mountains. Beyond this entrance [...]
Victoria Falls
There are few appropriate superlatives that have not already been applied to this magnificent natural wonder of the world; in many ways it defies description. So vast are the Falls and their setting that it is difficult to grasp their true grandeur and for this reason, they are perhaps best seen from the air. The [...]
The Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon of the Colorado River is the largest gorge in the world-a 290-mile-long gash across the face of the Colorado Plateau in northern Arizona. Rim to rim, it measures up to 18 miles across, with an average width of 10 miles; its average depth is one mile. Within this Delaware-size area of eroded [...]
Mount Everest
Location: Mount Everest is a rock and snow peak of the Himalayas. It is in Nepal and stands on the border of Tibet. History: The expedition which first reached the summit, in 1953, was the eighth to make the attempt; there had also been three reconnaissance expeditions. The peak was named after Sir George Everest. [...]
The Seven Natural Wonders of the World
The world’s natural wonders differ from the other grouping of wonders in that they were not made or improved upon by humans. They actually humble humanity. The local native peoples have known these wonders for millenia, however this list came to the notice of the Western world relatively recently. For example, Mount Everest wasn’t identified [...]
Recent Comments