In 1999, Bernard Weber started the New7Wonders foundation, and eight years, 200 candidates and 100 million votes later, seven man-made structures now have something in common - they all hold the title of 'Wonder'. Weber claims he started the foundation to ensure that "everybody can decide what the new seven wonders should be and not some government, not some individuals, not some institutions."
Nominated structures had to be built or discovered before the year 2000, and out of the 200 nominations, only twenty-one were left by the early part of last year. Voting had been taking place for six months, but only recently did voting result in server crashes, causing the foundation to encourage text message voting.
The results were announced at a ceremony hosted by Hilary Swank, Ben Kingsley and Bollywood star Bipasha Basu in Lisbon, Portugal. Out of the twenty-one, the following seven were announced as the new 'Wonders of the World':
Although the foundation had large amounts of public support, UNESCO, the United Nations cultural program, distanced themselves from the project, saying it had "no link whatsoever" to the project. UNESCO currently keeps tabs on 851 places in its 'World Heritage Sites' program.
Left out of the Seven are the Pyramids of Giza, to which a respected Egyptian antiquities expert replied that the pyramids are a "symbol of the genius of the ancient people." The foundation announced that the pyramids would have "honorary status" with the seven. The pyramids were the only remaining of the original Seven Wonders.
Weber claims that now that the man-made wonders have been chosen he has a new task: choosing the seven natural wonders of the world. He says he will start his new project immediately.
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Poll of 100 million votes names new Seven Wonders of the World