North American
wonders reach from from the lofty
peaks of the Cascade Mountain range
to the watery paradise of Florida's
Everglades.
The South American
natural forces can be witnessed in
countless forms--you'll find them
cascading over the Devil's Throat
of the Iguazu Falls, flooding Llanos
grasslands.
The Australian
Great Barrier Reef stretches to Papua
New Guinea, while New Zealand's Tongariro
volcano towers above waves of rugged
hills.
The African
Congo Basin is a network of swamps
and emerald forests as diverse as
the four counterpoints it unifies.
The European
and Middle Eastern
natural histories include building
castles on its rocky peaks, painting
frescoes in its caves, trading through
its passes, and perishing at its mercy.
The dual Asian
power of nature is demonstrated through
the elements at play in Asia. Fire-spewing
volcanoes raise new lands from their
summits.Ocean-worlds house water-kingdoms.
Finally earth-bound and sky-stretching
mountains--figures of inspiration.
The polar regions
are an icy wilderness where the frozen
fingertips of polar icecaps feel their
way across stretches of land and water,
the Arctic and Antarctic form the
polar regions of our globe.
The wonders of the mythological
world. The term ‘mythology’
is used to denote either the study
of myths or, loosely, myths themselves.
Myths are traditional tales, and they
have become so because they possess
some significance or enduring quality.
These will be explored in great detail
as this site grows
The
historian Herodotus (484 BC–ca.
425 BC), and the scholar Callimachus
of Cyrene (ca 305–240 BC)
at the Museum of Alexandria, made
early lists of Seven wonders but
their writings have not survived,
except as references.
Many
lists of wonders of the world are
said to have existed during the
Middle Ages, although it is unlikely
that these lists originated at that
time because the word medieval was
not even invented until the Enlightenment-era,
and the concept of a Middle Age
did not become popular until the
16th century.
Many
lists have been made of the greatest
structures built during modern times
or of the greatest wonders existing
today. Some of the most notable lists
are presented below. The American
Society of Civil Engineers compiled
a list of wonders of the modern world:
In
2001 an initiative was started by
the Swiss corporation New7Wonders
Foundation to choose the New Seven
Wonders of the World from a selection
of 200 existing monuments for profit.
Twenty-one finalists were announced
January 1, 2006. Egypt was not happy
with the fact that the only original
wonder would have to compete with
the likes of the Statue of Liberty,
the Sydney Opera House, and other
landmarks; and called the project
absurd. To solve this, Giza was named
an honorary Candidate. The results
were announced on July 7, 2007 in
Benfica's stadium in a big ceremony
in Lisbon, Portugal, and are listed
here:
Similar
to the other lists of wonders, there
is no consensus on a list of seven
natural wonders of the world, as there
has been debate over how large the
list should be. One of the many lists
was compiled by CNN:
The
Seven Underwater Wonders of the World
was a list drawn up by CEDAM International,
an American-based non-profit group
for divers, dedicated to ocean preservation
and research.
In
1989 CEDAM brought together a panel
of marine scientists, including Dr.
Eugenie Clark, to pick underwater
areas which they considered to be
worthy of protection. The results
were announced at The National Aquarium
in Washington DC by actor Lloyd Bridges,
who played in a TV show titled Sea
Hunt:
British
author Deborah Cadbury wrote Seven
Wonders of the Industrial World,
a book telling the stories of seven
great feats of engineering of the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
In 2003 the BBC made a seven-part
documentary series on the book,
with each episode dramatising the
construction one of the wonders.
The seven industrial wonders are:
