Rising from a stretch of desert with nothing but remoteness to recommend it, Las Vegas became a glittering wonderland for dreamers; a look at the forces that made Las Vegas a place unlike any on earth.

More than 50 years after its construction, the Golden Gate remains one of the world's great engineering marvels. It took 25-million man-hours and 80,000 miles of cable to complete; the cost in human life proved even greater.

Under the supervision of sculptor Gutzon Borglum, miners and quarrymen carve the faces of four U.S. presidents into the Black Hills of South Dakota, paying tribute to the first 150 years of American history.

With technological advances, our ancient struggle against the sea has turned into a luxurious holiday; a peek at the elegant life on these floating resorts.

The construction of the 51-mile canal that took ten years to build and employed over 40,000 workers, 6,000 of whom died of yellow fever, malaria, and other horrors; an earlier, nine-year attempt by the French ended in failure and cost 20,000 lives.

The landmark New York City skyscraper was constructed during the depths of the Depression. Requiring 10 million bricks and 60,000 tons of steel beams and using a revolutionary technique to hold the steel girders in place: hot rivets.