The Great Wall of China was
originally built around 700 BC in several different sections, eventually
connected as the Great Wall during the Qin Dynasty (240 BC). The
wall was further strengthened during the Ming Dynasty (1369 - 1644) to
attempt to keep out the Mongols. The Wall is over 2,400 miles long, traveling
through the mountains of China.
There are a couple of interesting tidbits about the wall:
- If you took all of the bricks used in the Great
Wall, you could build a wall five meters high and one meter wide around
the entire world.
- It was built over the
course of 500 years by over 1 million slave laborers. During the
original construction, many of the laborers were killed while working on
the wall and many are said to be buried under the wall.
- They say that the Great Wall is one of the only man-made
structures that is actually visible from space, although there is some
rumor that you can now see the landfill on Staten Island from space as
well.
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