Today is Earth Day, a global observance started by US Senator Gaylord Nelson in 1970 as a nationwide protest intended to thrust the environment onto the political agenda. Considered the birth of the modern environmental movement, the continuing mission of Earth day is to raise awareness of and appreciation for the Earth’s environment.

Hundreds of millions of people in around 175 countries will be taking part in events which have been organised at every corner of the globe, and you lot don’t get out of doing your part either! Show your support for Earth day and leave a comment with a link to a globe of the earth, somewhere on Google Earth - like this great big one in Berlin.

Check out the The Earth Day Network website for more information, and thanks to Tom Hooten for our starter globe.

In an incredible stroke of luck, this image of Potsdam, Germany was captured at exactly the same moment by both Google Earth and I Can Has Cheezburger!

Ladies and gentlemen I give you, HOVEROCEROS!

(If you haven’t got a clue what we’re on about, hopefully this should help!)

Thanks to sladys and I Can Has Cheezburger.

Earlier this week archaeologists began excavating Stonehenge in an attempt to decide once and for all exactly when this enigmatic monument was constructed.

Stonehenge has most certainly been around many thousands of years, meaning there has been plenty of time for people to build loads of rip-offs and copies, most of them in the US.

Stonehenge II in Texas is a replica made from wire-mesh “stones” a bit like giant Papier-mâché. Strangely, the stones are about 90% the width of the originals, but only 60% the height - and if you make your way out to see the monument you’ll find it’s flanked by beer-bellied Easter island Moai. Obviously.

There’s ground level pictures on Flickr and more information at Roadside America.

Our second Stonehenge replica is found at Missouri’s University of Science and Technology is at least made of stone, this time made from 160 tons of granite carved with high pressure water jets. Sadly it’s only ½ the size of the original.

There’s also a ground level picture on Flickr.

East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania have a small replica which they apparently dubbed “Stroudhenge”.

Montana’s Stonehenge is located on a private golf course in Montana, and is claimed to be the most accurate replica ever built. But no-one’s been able to confirm that as the golf club is so exclusive.

Lastly, it’s difficult to see from the satellite photos, but Truckhenge whilst not a faithful reproduction certainly scores points through being constructed entirely in the medium of trucks. More info and pictures on Kansas Travel.

Thanks to Henderson Smith, James, FBK and others.

Previously on Google Sightseeing we’ve featured Stonefridge, Maryhill’s Stonehenge, the Segway Inventor’s Stonehenge and a little-known version in England simply called “Stonehenge“.

The Battle of Stalingrad was one of the turning points of the war in Europe and with casualties above 1.5 million, arguably the bloodiest battle in all of human history.

One of the most heavily contested sites within Stalingrad was Mamayev Kurgan, a hill overlooking the city. It is here where the USSR dedicated a memorial to the Soviet victory, the centrepiece of which is an absolutely enormous statue - “The Motherland Calls!” (”Rodina Mat’ Zovyot!”), which at the time of its dedication in 1967 was the largest sculpture in the world.

Since then Stalingrad, USSR, has become Volgograd, Russia, but this monumental memorial still dominates the skyline. The 52 metre figure is made of concrete, and her 33 metre sword is stainless-steel, making the sculpture 85 metres from tip to toe (not including the plinth, which adds another 16 metres). Here’s a ground-level shot which you absolutely have to see to believe!

The Motherland Calls! was designed by Yevgeny Vuchetich (who also designed Berlin’s Soviet War Memorial) and she was erected as part of a series of sculptures commemorating the Soviet victory in the Eastern Front of World War II (another of which, Kiev’s Mother Motherland, we’ve previously featured¹).

This massive engineering task was orchestrated by Nikolai Nikitin who was also responsible for the previously featured Moscow State University, Warsaw Palace of Culture and Science and Ostankino Tower - which are all ridiculously enormous too!

More info about the Battle of Stalingrad, Volgograd, Mamayev Kurgan and The Motherland Calls!, as always, at Wikipedia. Or check out a tour of Mamayev Kurgan at the official site (in English).

North of the Chinese city of Hangzhou, a brand new housing development is taking shape in an unusual style. At least unusual for China anyway, as Tianducheng is designed to look like Paris, France! There are currently just 2000 residents living in the development, but its eventual capacity will be around 100,000.

Hoping to bring the ‘European Lifestyle’ to China’s growing number of wealthy residents, the 31 km² development features several reproductions of famous Parisian landmarks, including the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe. At 108 metres, Tianducheng’s Eiffel Tower is the second largest replica of the Eiffel Tower in the world¹ - roughly one third the height of its Parisian namesake.

The development has large landscaped gardens containing several ornate fountains, and from the few photographs of the development available online it would seem likely that in the next thumbnail you can see the Bassin de Latone, which is a copy of the one in the Palace of Versailles’ garden.

As we have seen, there are replicas of specific landmarks here, although much of the design seems to be an amalgam of Parisian architectual styles, so it’s really interesting to compare the two. This video shows just how much work has gone into Tianducheng, and Reuters has a great photo slideshow.

Finally, it should be pointed out that Tianducheng is not the only such European-style development - in Shanghai they’re also building Thames Town (only partial high-resolution), which is modelled on a typical English town, and apparently Italian and German versions are planned elsewhere too!

Thanks to GEforumprofr at the Google Earth Community.

Read this article in Italian

When I was younger, it was always one of my favourite ‘facts’ that “millions of years ago crocodiles and alligators were, like, hundreds of feet long”. Of course it’s difficult to argue with a statement this naïve, but we do know that the biological order of large reptiles known as Crocodilia has remained pretty much unchanged for a staggering 84 million years.¹

Imagine my joy then, when I learned of a 200 foot-long gator in Florida! Imagine too, how my joy turned so quickly to disappointment when I saw the low-resolution shots that cover the Jungle Adventures alligator farm. They’re so poor that I can’t even spot a 200 foot-long alligator!

This got me thinking however… “What was the largest alligator in the world before this elusive specimen?” The answer of course, is the world’s second largest gator! What a beaut, eh?

Miraculously also in Florida, at Jungleland, this 126 foot-long monster has an evil glint in its eyes, and is so big it could easily eat cars like biscuits! Wait a minute… it IS eating a car! Yes, it’s chowing down on a safari jeep like it was a [Graham Cracker/Tim Tam/Hob-Nob]!²

All of which makes me rather glad that crocs and gators aren’t any bigger than they already are.

Thanks to Kurt Leucht and Felippo. Read more about the world’s largest gators at Roadside America.

Yesterday, 27th January, various countries celebrated Holocaust Memorial Day, which is dedicated to remembering the victims of the Holocaust.

27th January was chosen as it was the date on which Auschwitz was liberated in 1945. The concentration camp is not currently covered by high resolution imagery but you can see archive aerial shots as Google Earth overlays.

In 2004 the monument to the murdered Jews of Europe was established in the centre of Berlin. The monument is over 19,000 m², the entirety of which is covered with 2,711 concrete slabs of various heights. Between the slabs the ground slopes about unevenly, and there is no predefined path through the monument.

An underground museum below the monument holds the names of all known Jewish Holocaust victims and a quote above the entrance reads:

“It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say”.

Further information on the monument on Sacred Destinations.

Thanks: Chris Westbrook, Stephan Gajewski, Leon el africano and David Boardman

Brú na Bóinne (Palace of the Boyne) is a World Heritage Site situated in a bend of the River Boyne, County Meath, Ireland. The site contains around 40 passage graves as well as other standing stones, henges and later features. Brú na Bóinne is the location of some of the world’s most historically important Neolithic passage graves, Newgrange, Dowth and Knowth.

Newgrange

The Newgrange passage grave was built between 3300 and 2900 BC, making it more than 500 years older than the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. Hidden for over 4,000 years, Newgrange was only re-discovered accidentally in 1699, but it was hugely restored between 1962 and 1975 and today consists of a huge mound retained within a circle of 97 intricately carved kerbstones, topped by a high wall of white quartz and granite.

Newgrange was built in such a way that at dawn on the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice, a narrow beam of sunlight for a very short time illuminates the floor of the chamber at the end of the long passageway.

The Newgrange mound is 76m across and 12m high, and within the mound an 18m-long passage leads to a cross-shaped chamber with an arched roof. The ceiling of the chamber rises to a height of nearly 6m, and incredibly, has remained essentially intact and waterproof for over 5,000 years.

Dowth

The oldest of the three principal tombs, Dowth has been less developed as a tourist attraction than its neighbours (it was partly excavated in 1847 though it had been pillaged long before that). Quartz was found around the mound, indicating that the entrance to this tomb was surrounded by glittering white, just like Newgrange.

Dowth has two passages leading to two separate chambers, one cross-shaped, and one circular. The circular chamber is, again like Newgrange, touched by the light of the low sun around the time of the winter solstice. A convex central stone reflects the sunlight into a dark recess, lighting up the decorated stones there.

Knowth

The largest of all the passage graves at Brú na Bóinne, Knowth contains more than a third of the total number of examples of megalithic art in all Western Europe.

Made up of one large mound and 18 smaller satellite tombs, the large mound contains two independent passages running east to west, which both lead to a central burial chamber. This east-west orientation suggests that at one time there may have been an astronomical alignment with the spring and summer equinoxes, but this no longer occurs today.

Full scale excavations began on Knowth in 1962, and in contrast to the restoration efforts at Newgrange, it was decided that the fallen quartz surrounding the mound would not have been part of a front wall, but rather laid out to form a white “apron” in front of the entrance.

Other

The 780 hectares of Brú na Bóinne are absolutely loaded with other Neolithic structures - I easily found Dowth Henge, and many others - and yet the reason that so many structures were built in this specific location remains completely unknown.

More about Brú na Bóinne, Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth at Wikipedia, or visit the much more in-depth Knowth.com for some excellent inforation and some great aerial photos.