First Emperor Qin Shi, regarded by many as the founding father of China, builds a wall along 1,200 miles of China’s northern border. The wall stands between 20 and 50 feet high and 18 and 30 feet wide. It has a roadway on top, along with many periodic stations and connecting towers.
The wall’s more muscular successor, the 4,000–mile–long Great Wall, is built 17 centuries later under the extraordinary Ming Dynasty.