Unbelievable, but today is the 4th anniversary of the launch of Google Sightseeing! We shan’t bore you with a potted history – instead we’re revisiting a couple of sights from this day in 2005 to see how things have changed.

Back in 2005, Google Maps’ satellite imagery was barely 24 hours old, and restricted to North America, when we linked to our very first sight – this Mickey Mouse-shaped lake at Disney World, Florida. Interestingly, other than a change in the projection of the images¹ (which stopped everything looking squished), the imagery here hasn’t been updated since then.

In a poor reflection on our imaginations back in 2005, the second sight we posted was even more stereotypically “American”. We think we’ve come a long way since we posted The Hollywood sign, as the entire post simply consisted of the words:

Only just legible, but very cool, the Hollywood sign. Now I don’t need to go there to see it.

The imagery may have been updated since then² (and we’ve gotten a lot more wordy), but the sign never really changes much. However, thanks to Google Street View, we can now get an even better view from the ground.³

Google Sightseeing has come a long way since 2005, and we’re very much looking forward to improving and expanding the site even further in the future. Later this week we’ll be announcing the results of our recruitment drive from a few weeks ago, so there’s going to be lots of new Google Sightseeing to be done over the next four years.

Thanks for reading.

Tied up in Tilbury Docks, we find the MV Ross Revenge, home to Radio Caroline and one of the last surviving pirate radio ships.

For many people in the UK and Western Europe in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, pirate radio was the only source of good music – an alternative to the staid and strictly controlled national stations. Radio Caroline was the most well-known, and the longest running, of the pirate stations. It operated from a succession of ships that ran aground, sank or were impounded.

The Ross Revenge started life as a fishing vessel, and spent time as a diving support ship. After being fitted with 90m high antennas (the tallest mast on any ship) it took to the North Sea and started broadcasting in 1983. The masts are vaguely visible in Live Maps, but are best seen in this Panoramio image or historic photos.

The crews and DJs survived with clandestine deliveries of supplies from small or remote ports as supporting such operations was illegal. Similarly, most advertising originated overseas.

The ship weathered the dreadful storm of October 1987, a collapse of the mast, surveillance by government vessels and even a police raid of questionable legality. Despite surviving all these difficulties, the station closed in November 1990 due to a lack of funding and supplies. A year later a storm washed the ship onto a sandbank and the remaining crew was rescued.

After salvage and several relocations, the ship now rests in Tilbury docks, with volunteers working on restoration. Radio Caroline, now a legal satellite station, occasionally still broadcasts from the studios onboard.

Thanks to the excellent high-quality imagery in Google Earth, some “scientists”¹ claim to have discovered a 1,000-year-old forgotten relic of the fishing world.

Just off the coast of Wales they spotted this large v-shaped row of rocks beneath the water – which looked like a traditional British fishing weir. This was a fishing method whereby the tide would bring fish through the gaps in the rocks, which would then be blocked by wattle fences when the tide turned to flow out again.

The only problem with fishing in this way was that it was far too effective – this was so well known that the Magna Carta, published in 1215, actually includes the following clause:

(33) All fish-weirs shall be removed from the Thames, the Medway, and throughout the whole of England, except on the sea coast.

So our intrepid “scientists” actually took a trip to Wales to check out in person what they had found, and sure enough, one underwater scuba adventure later, they emerged smugly from the water like some sort of Internet-savvy Indiana Jones’.

How would “scientists” cope these days I wonder, without Google Earth to help them do their research?

Thanks to Frank at the GEarth Blog and Jason Kottke.

Today we’ll explore some of the world’s most famous recording studios, starting with Sun Studio in Memphis. I love this Street View with the neon signs glowing!

Perhaps best known as the location of Elvis Presley’s early recordings, the studio was also used by many rock-n-roll greats including Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison and Jerry Lee Lewis. The building reopened in 1987 as a functioning studio and museum, appearing soon after that in the U2 film Rattle and Hum.

Speaking of U2, their first three albums were recorded at Windmill Lane Studios in Dublin. While the studio has moved, the location remains a site of pilgrimage for devoted fans who cover the walls with graffiti, visible on Live Maps:

One of the more unique studios in the world is the Astoria studio, found in a houseboat on the River Thames west of London.

Built in 1911, and originally designed to house an entire orchestra, the boat is currently owned by Dave Gilmour and parts of Pink Floyd’s two most recent albums were recorded there.

Most of Prince’s albums from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s were recorded at the now-defunct studio that shared a name with a song and record label: Paisley Park.

While we’ve already visited the Abbey Road zebra crossing on Google Sightseeing, we didn’t look at the actual studio:

Home to the vast majority of The Beatles’ recording sessions, these studios have since hosted a Who’s Who of modern rock, pop and classical music, from Radiohead to the Spice Girls. The wall outside Abbey Road Studios is also covered in graffiti from music fans, though it’s not visible on either Google or Live Maps.

From 1959 to 1971, Motown Records put more than 110 songs into the Top 10 – the majority of them were recorded at Hitsville USA, a pair of Detroit buildings that housed the label’s studios and administrative offices.

The label moved to Los Angeles in 1972, but the buildings have served as a popular museum since 1985.

And finally we fly to Berlin to see the Hansa Tonstudios.

Perhaps most famous for David Bowie’s Low and Heroes albums, many artists have taken residence there seeking inspiration from the culture and history of East and West Berlin.

Where was your favourite album recorded?

Thanks to Lianachan, Stephen Jackson, Martin S., 433 and Stephen LaMora.

As a follow-up to our recent story about the largest ship graveyard in the Western hemisphere, today we’re visiting Mauritania, where we find the world’s largest ship graveyard!

The port of Nouadhibou is the final resting place of over 300 ships. Unlike the en masse arrival of ships at Mallows Bay, here the number of craft has built up over time, as corrupt officials accepted bribes from boat owners to allow them to dump their vessels in the area¹.

The ships are everywhere! Some are rusting on the beaches, some are overturned just metres from local fishing boats, and even more are anchored in deeper waters, either alone or tied together in rafts of up to 9 ships.

There are so many abandoned ships that you have to wonder how the local fishing fleet and commercial vessels navigate safely when leaving the port.²

In an effort to clean up the local environment, several solutions have been put forward for consideration. Of these suggestions, towing the ships to other locations would seem to be just a matter of moving the problem, and blowing them up surely can’t be the best way to improve things!

There’s a set of pictures that has circulated amongst many blogs, but Artificial Owl has a different set, while Geographical.co.uk has some good images and information.

Thanks to Christoph.