Random Wonders of the Modern World (7 items)

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  (#4) Panama Canal

  • North America

  The canal is a 51-mile man-made waterway connecting the Pacific Ocean to the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, cutting through the Isthmus of Panama. Since its completion in 1914, it has been an important route for international trade, as it eliminated the need for ships to sail around Cape Horn below South America to travel between the two oceans. Construction of the Canal took over 30 years and remains one of the most complex and significant engineering projects ever attempted.
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  (#6) North Sea Protection Works

  A massive hydraulic engineering project undertaken by the Netherlands is collectively known as the "North Sea Protection Works," though it's really made up of two separate manmade systems of dams and water drainage – the Zuiderzee Works and the Delta works. The projects involved damming large, shallow inlets of the North Sea and thus, reclaiming land that would otherwise be underwater and unusable. The land is currently used for flood protection and agriculture.
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  (#3) CN Tower

  • Ontario, Canada

  The CN Tower of Downtown Toronto, Canada, serves as both a communications and observation tower. It stands at 553 meters (or about 1,815 feet), and was the world's tallest free-standing structure and world's tallest tower when it was completed in 1976. The name "CN" originally stood for Canadian National, the railway company that helped sponsor the tower. Today, it is sometimes referred to as "The Canadian National Tower" or "Canada's National Tower."
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  (#5) Channel Tunnel

  • English Channel

  The Channel Tunnel (sometimes shorted as the "Chunnel") is an undersea railway connecting the United Kingdom with France. The tunnel, which opened in 1994, runs beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover. At its lowest point, it is about 250 feet deep. The Channel Tunnel contains the longest undersea tunnel segment in the world. 
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  (#1) Empire State Building

  • Midtown Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

  Originally completed in 1931, the Empire State Building (which takes its name from the nickname of New York State) was, for a long time, the world's tallest building. It was surpassed in 1972 by the World Trade Center. It has 102 stories and stands at 1,250 feet (1,454 if you include the antenna spire.)
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  (#2) Itaipu Dam

  Located on the Brazilian-Paraguayan border, the Itaipu Dam was fully constructed in 1983 and provides hyro-electricity with the Parana River. It's the largest hyroelectric facility in the world, reaching heights of a 65 story building and has enough steel to construct 380 Eiffel Towers. It's one of the most expensive objects ever built, providing 17.3% of all of Brazil's energy consumption and 72.5% of Paraguay's.

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