A Brief History of the World's Tallest Buildings
Paul Hardy / Corbis
The Great Pyramid
Humanity's edifice complex goes back way back to around 2,575 B.C., when the Great Pyramid of Giza, the tallest of Egypt's famous monuments, began its four-millennium reign as the world's tallest building. Originally rising 481 ft. (146 m) above a rocky stretch along the Nile river, it has been beaten down 30 ft. (9 m) by years of erosion.
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