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:

 

SS Great Eastern- The SS Great Eastern was an iron sailing steam ship designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. She was the largest ship ever built at the time of her 1858 launch, and had the capacity to carry 4,000 passengers around the world without refueling.

 

Bell Rock Lighthouse -Bell Rock Lighthouse is the world's oldest surviving sea-washed lighthouse and was built on Bell Rock (also known as Inchcape) in the North Sea, 12 miles (18 km) off the coast of Angus, Scotland, east of the Firth of Tay.

 

Brooklyn Bridge- The Brooklyn Bridge, one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States, stretches 5,989 feet (1825 m)[1] over the East River, connecting the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn (on Long Island).

 

London sewerage system- The London sewerage system is part of the water infrastructure serving London. The modern roots of the system were first developed during the late 19th century, but as London has grown the system has been expanded and needs further investment.

 

First Transcontinental Railroad- The First Transcontinental Railroad is the popular name of the U.S. railroad line (known at the time as the Pacific Railroad) completed in 1869 between Council Bluffs, Iowa/Omaha, Nebraska (via Ogden, Utah and Sacramento, California) and Alameda, California.

 

Panama Canal-The Panama Canal is a ship canal which joins the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific ocean. One of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken, it had an enormous impact on shipping between the two oceans, replacing the long and treacherous route via the Drake Passage and Cape Horn at the southernmost tip of South America.

 

Hoover Dam- Hoover Dam, originally known as Boulder Dam, is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Arizona and Nevada.