Great Wall of China

When the Great Wall was under construction, locals referred to it as the longest cemetery because so many lives were lost while it was built.

Watchtowers are placed intermittently along the Great Wall. These housed garrisons and supplies.

Watchtowers along the Wall were used to protect traders on China's "silk road."

Voltaire, an eighteenth century French philosopher and writer, called The Great Wall of China a monument to Fear.



Visitors to Beijing will find the closest section of the Great Wall in the province of Badaling.

Torches could be lit from one watchtower to another as a way of sending signals.

Tianwang, the God of the Heavens, can be found in reliefs all along the Great Wall.

The wheelbarrow is actually a Chinese invention and was used during the construction of the Great Wall.

The wall was constructed from stone, brick, and rice flour mortar.

The main wall is approximately 2,145 miles long with more than 1,700 miles of spurs.

The legend that the mortar was constructed from human bone is a myth.

The last great battles fought at the Great Wall occurred in the twentieth century.

The Great Wall is the longest man-made structure in the world.

The Badaling segment was the first section to open to tourists in 1957.

The Badaling section marked the end of the 2008 Summer Olympics cycling course.

Nixon visited the Great Wall in Badaling when he was in China.

Kafka, an early twentieth century novelist, praised the Great Wall in his short story aptly titled The Great Wall of China.

Genghis Khan circumvented the discontinuous sections of the wall when he and his Mongol Horde invaded china in 1211.

During the Qin and Han dynasties, convicts were sent to build the wall as part of their punishment.

Despite a persistent myth, the Wall cannot be seen from the moon without visual aid.

Bullet marks can still be seen on the Wall in the province of Gubeikou, a remnant of the Sino-Japanese war in 1938.

Arthur Walden, a historian, popularized the concept that the Great Wall was one continuous wall.

Another legend suggests that a dragon traced out the course of the Great Wall, which is why it weaves.

Among the manpower to build the wall were peasants, frontier guardsmen, intellectuals, and disgraced noblemen.

A million men defended the Wall during the Ming dynasty.