Buckingham Fountain (Chicago)

Buckingham Fountain opened May 26, 1927, the Buckingham Fountain has become one of the Windy City's top attractions, and arguably competes with the Sears Tower as Chicago's most famous landmark. This is donated to the city by Kate Buckingham, the Buckingham Fountain is Chicago's centerpiece along the Lake Michigan shore, and is a popular destination spot for visitors and locals alike.

This is donated to the city by Kate Buckingham, the Buckingham Fountain is Chicago's centerpiece along the Lake Michigan shore, and is a popular destination spot for visitors and locals alike. 

Buckingham Fountain is paid for not by the city, but through the Buckingham Fountain Endowment Fund, which Kate Buckingham established so that Chicago taxpayers would never have the burden of fountain costs.

Made out of gorgeous pink Georgia marble, the real attraction of the fountain is the water, light, and music show that takes place every hour. Controlled by a computer in its underground pump room, it's a dazzling display that makes for a fantastic photo opportunity and a picture perfect background -- which is why you'll inevitably see a wedding party having portraits taken there during milder weather. 

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Machu Picchu (Peru)

Machu Picchu is probably the most familiar symbol of the Inca Empire. Machu Picchu (which means “manly peak”) was most likely a royal estate and religious retreat. It was built between 1460 and 1470 AD by Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui, an Incan ruler. The site has a large palace and temples dedicated to Inca deities around a courtyard, with other buildings for support staff. It is estimated that a maximum of only about 750 people resided in Machu Picchu at any one time, and probably only a small fraction of that number lived in the town during the rainy season and when none of the nobility were visiting. After Pachacuti’s death, Machu Picchu became the property of his allus, or kinship group, which was responsible for it’s maintenance, administration, and any new construction.

The Incas started building the "estate" around AD 1400, but abandoned it as an official site for the Inca rulers a century later at the time of theSpanish Conquest. Although known locally, it was unknown to the outside world before being brought to international attention in 1911 by the American historian Hiram Bingham. Since then, Machu Picchu has become an important tourist attraction. Most of the outlying buildings have been reconstructed in order to give tourists a better idea of what the structures originally looked like. By 1976, thirty percent of Machu Picchu had been restored. The restoration work continues to this day

Machu Picchu was built in the classical Inca style, with polished dry-stone walls. Its three primary buildings are the Intihuatana, the Temple of the Sun, and the Room of the Three Windows. These are located in what is known by archaeologists as the Sacred District of Machu Picchu. In September 2007, Peru and Yale University almost reached an agreement regarding the return of artifacts which Yale has held since Hiram Bingham removed them from Machu Picchu in the early 20th century. In November 2010, a Yale University representative agreed to return the artifacts to a Peruvian university.

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Sahara Desert (Antarctic)

Sahara Desert is the world's second largest desert, after Antarctica. At over 9,400,000 square kilometres (3,630,000 sq mi), it covers most of Northern Africa, making it almost as large as Europe or the United States. The Sahara stretches from the Red Sea, including parts of the Mediterranean coasts, to the outskirts of the Atlantic Ocean. To the south, it is delimited by the Sahel, a belt of semi-arid tropical savanna that composes the northern region of central and western Sub-Saharan Africa.

The Sahara's boundaries are the Atlantic Ocean on the west, the Atlas Mountains and the Mediterranean Sea on the north, the Red Sea and Egypt on the east, and the Sudan and the valley of the Niger River on the south. The Sahara is divided into western Sahara, the central Ahaggar Mountains, the Tibesti Mountains, the Air Mountains (a region of desert mountains and high plateaus), Ténéré desert and the Libyan desert (the most arid region). The highest peak in the Sahara is Emi Koussi (3,415 m/11,204 ft) in the Tibesti Mountains in northern Chad.

The flora of the central Sahara Desert is quite depauperate, and is estimated to include only 500 species. This is extremely low considering the huge extent of the area. It mainly consists of xerophytes and ephemeral plants (called also locally Acheb), with halophytes in moister areas. The flora has one near endemic family, a number of isolated monotypic genera of both wide and narrow distribution, and perhaps as many as 162 endemic species. The monotypic genera suggest a Tertiary origin with probable extinction of linking forms. Vegetation is very contracted along the wadis and the dayas with Acacia sp, Tamarix sp., and Calotropis procera. Where there is sufficient groundwater, hammadas are covered by Anrthirrnum ramosissimuma and Ononis angustissima.

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