20100417 Su-jin Park S16 Journal8

20100417 Su-jin Park S16 Journal8

I take the history class in school, so I will introduce some interesting story about well known Historic Site. This is the sixth story.

<THE FALLING TOWER: Leaning Tower of Pisa>

People can see a bell tower that leans in the town of Pisa, Italy. It’s called the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and it is the freestanding bell tower. The Leaning Tower of Pisa stands 55.86 meters high and weighs around 14,453 tons. It’s been leaning more and more ever since it was built about 700 years ago.

Some say that long ago the great Italian scientist Galileo dropped weights from the tower to learn how fast things fall. Even then, the tower was a leaning tower. But this Galileo’s anecdote is not historical fact. When Galileo’s disciple, Viviani, wrote a biography of Galileo, he put this story in biography after Galileo died.

The construction of the Leaning tower of Pisa began on August 9, 1173. At this time the tower was vertical. However by the 13th century, the tower began to lean. Little by little, one side of the tower keeps on sinking into the soft ground. The Leaning Tower tips about an inch every nine years. The farther it leans out of line the faster it tips. So the government of Italy stated construction to prevent the collapse of Tower. The construction was finished successfully. Symptoms that tower was leaning have stopped and now tower's slope is 5.5.

If the Leaning Tower ever falls, it will be the end of what some people say is one of the seven wonders of the modern world.