Transforming the Landscape

The 5 moments in this challenge

The scenes are shown below — tap a card to reveal its place and year.

1. 

   Round 1 · 1998

   Erecting the Angel of the North

   Gateshead, United Kingdom

   Antony Gormley's colossal contemporary steel sculpture, featuring a wingspan as wide as a jumbo jet, was transported in pieces and lowered onto its deep concrete foundations by giant mobile cranes.

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2. 

   Round 2 · 1861

   Completing the First Transcontinental Telegraph

   Salt Lake City, USA

   The connection of the final wires instantly rendered the Pony Express obsolete, allowing near-instantaneous communication between the East Coast and California across the vast American frontier.

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3. 

   Round 3 · 1788

   The Day of the Tiles

   Grenoble, France

   In a famous and bloody prelude to the French Revolution, the citizens of Grenoble fiercely drove royalist troops out of the city by pelting them from the rooftops with heavy ceramic tiles.

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4. 

   Round 4 · 1971

   Igniting the Darvaza Gas Crater

   Karakum Desert, Turkmenistan

   When a Soviet drilling rig collapsed into a massive natural gas cavern in the Karakum Desert, geologists intentionally set the pit on fire to prevent the spread of toxic methane gas.

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5. 

   Round 5 · 1905

   Flooding the Salton Sink

   Imperial Valley, United States

   A poorly engineered irrigation cut on the Colorado River was overwhelmed by floodwaters, accidentally diverting the entire raging river into the Californian desert basin and creating the massive Salton Sea.

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