The Leaning Tower Of Pisa
By: Tanner Ingram
HISTORY
HISTORY- The leaning tower of Pisa took over 800 years to be built and was designed by Bonanno Pisano. The Leaning tower was made out of Limestone and lime mortar. It was originally supposed to be a bell tower and was straight for only five years. The tower is the third oldest building on the cathedral square. After that, the third story was built and it started to lean. Everyone that noticed the tower was leaning got scared and thought that it was going to fall on them. During World War II the allies (Britain, France, and the United States) found out that the Germans were using the leaning tower of Pisa as lookout spot.
BUILDING THE TOWER - The leaning tower of Pisa is known as the smallest "tower.” It is only 55.86 meters tall. People believe that many factors contributed to the leaning but the best reason is that it was built on a clay foundation that could not handle the weight of the stones. A lot of people tried to fix the tower to be straight but they failed every time and some people even made it even worse.
VISITING THE TOWER - In 1989 the tower was closed and the public could not go in it at all. The bells were removed because they were too heavy. On December 15, 2001 the Leaning Tower of Pisa opened to the public once again. In May 2008 engineers said that the tower had stopped moving for the first time ever and it would be stable for at least another two-hundred years.
FUN FACTS - There are 294 steps on the north side of the tower and 296 steps on the south side of the tower. There are seven bells in total, seven bells sit in the bell-chamber at the top of the tower, one bell for each note of the musical major scale. There are many other leaning towers around the world, the leaning tower of Pisa is just one of them. The leaning tower weighs 14,500 tons. After the tower started to lean all construction was stopped for 100 years.