On March 15, 1968, construction started on the north tunnel of
the Eisenhower/Johnson Memorial Tunnel on Interstate 70 in
Colorado, some 60 miles west of Denver.

Located at an elevation of more than 11,000 feet, the project was
an engineering marvel and became the world’s highest vehicular
tunnel when it was completed in 1979. Four months after opening,
one million vehicles had passed through the tunnel; today, some
10 million vehicles drive through it each year.

On January 5, 1933, construction began on the Golden Gate
Bridge, as workers began excavating 3.25 million cubic feet
of dirt for the structure’s huge anchorages.

On May 27, 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge was opened, Celebrations lasted for a week! Vehicles were not permitted to cross on the first
day, so 200,000 people made their way across the bridge on foot
or roller skaters. The day after it opened, President Roosevelt, who
was in Washington D.C., had pushed a button that allowed vehicles across the bridge.

On January 5, 1933, construction began on the Golden Gate
Bridge, as workers began excavating 3.25 million cubic feet
of dirt for the structure’s huge anchorages.

Following the Gold Rush boom that began in 1849, speculators
realized the land north of San Francisco Bay would increase in
value in direct proportion to its accessibility to the city. Soon,
a plan was hatched to build a bridge that would span the Golden
Gate, a narrow, 400-foot deep strait that serves as the mouth of
the San Francisco Bay, connecting the San Francisco Peninsula
with the southern end of Marin County.

One this day in 1620, one week after the Mayflower was anchored
at Plymouth harbor in present-day Massachusetts, construction
of the first permanent European settlement in New England began.  

These dwellings would shelter them through their difficult first 
winter in America.

Shortly after midnight on August 13, 1961, East German soldiers
began laying down barbed wire and bricks as a barrier between
Soviet-controlled East Berlin and the democratic western section
of the city.

After World War II, defeated Germany was divided into Soviet,
American, British and French zones of occupation. The city of
Berlin, though technically part of the Soviet zone, was also split,
with the Soviets taking the eastern part of the city. After a massive
Allied airlift in June 1948 foiled a Soviet attempt to blockade West
Berlin, the eastern section was drawn even more tightly into the
Soviet fold.

Over the next 12 years, cut off from its western counterpart and
basically reduced to a Soviet satellite, East Germany saw between
2.5 million and 3 million of its citizens head to West Germany in
search of better opportunities. By 1961, some 1,000 East Germans,
including many skilled laborers, professionals and intellectuals,
were leaving every day.