Category: legend

The Great Human Statue of Liberty

The Human Statue of Liberty. 18000 men were used for this photo! Iowa, 1918. The day on which the photograph was taken was extremely hot and the heat was intensified by the mass formation of men. The dimensions of the platting for the picture seem astonishing. The camera was placed on a high tower. From the position nearest the camera occupied by Colonel Newman and his staff, to the last man at the top of the torch as platted on the ground was 1,235 feet, or approximately a quarter of a mile. The appended figures will give an adequate idea of the distorted proportions of the actual ground measurements for this photograph:
Base to shoulder: 150 feet.
Right arm: 340 feet.
Widest part of arm holding torch: 12-1/2 feet.
Right thumb: 35 feet.
Thickest part of body: 29 feet.
Left hand (length): 30 feet.
Tablet in left hand: 27 feet.
Face: 60 feet.
Nose: 21 feet.
Longest spike of head piece: 70 feet.
Flame on torch.: 600 feet.
Torch and flame combined: 980 feet.
Number of men in flame of torch: 12,000
Number of men in torch: 2,800
Number of men in right arm: 1,200
Number of men in body, head and balance of figure only: 2,000
Total: 18,000

City Of Volubilis Morocco

Throwback travel thursday takes us to Roman ruins located in Morocco. It’s the city of Volubilis, first built in 3rd century BC. Roman rule supercharged the city’s expansion and it grew to cover roughly 100 acres during the 1st century. The city was one of Rome’s most remote outposts and Roman control over the city only lasted until around 280 AD as local tribes took over. It was inhabited by many other groups though the centuries but by the 11th century was essentially abandoned. In 1997 it was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and now many come to marvel at the preserved ruins that remain.

History Iwo Jima Flag

When six U.S. Marines raised a flag over Iwo Jima in February 1945, they were laying claim to the slopes of a mountain, part of a strategically important chain of volcanic islands south of Tokyo. The Ogasawara Islands, also known as the Bonin Islands, were largely uninhabited. But during World War II, they offered a place where the invasion of Japan could be staged. The islands themselves weren’t empty—they were home to thousands of Japanese people, many of them with British and American ancestry. And, the American victory turned most of them into refugees over the next 23 years of U.S. occupation. In 1962, the United State abruptly gave the islands back to Japan. As the islands once again fell under Japanese control, islanders reconnected with their long-lost friends and family members and refugees returned. Even years after the handover, some Ogasawara residents are ambivalent about the change. “There are people who are very sad about the handover,” Yoko Tahashi, who lives in Chichijima, told the Japan Times’ David McNeill. “They don’t think of themselves as either Japanese or American, and feel that they have been cast aside. I feel sympathy for both sides.”