At 300 metres tall, what is now the symbol of Paris showed just what could be done with metal frames. It wouldn't be long before steel took over and American cities would be studded with skyscrapers.
Much bigger dams have been created since, and the Hoover Dam is no longer in the world's top 20, but still, this pioneering project across the Colorado River ushered in the era of the mega-dam.
When completed in 1914, the Panama Canal drastically changed how goods were shipped across the world. Cutting across the Panamanian Isthmus, this 82 kilometre canal connected the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, cutting thousands of kilometres off the journey around South America.
At 53.8 kilometres, the Seikan Tunnel was several times bigger than any underwater tunnel that had come before it. Construction started in 1971 and was completed in 1988, for a visionary project that connected the islands of Honshu and Hokkaido.
The world had seen several astonishing man-made irrigation schemes in the past, but none are quite on the scale of the Great Man-Made River. With 2820 kilometres of pipes and aqueducts.
When Osaka's original airport was deemed too small, there was a lack of land to build a new one. The solution was to create an artificial island in Osaka Bay, 4 kilometres long and 2.5 kilometres wide, and slap the airport on top of it.
In order to conduct never-before-achieved particle physics experiments, the multinational band of scientists at CERN (the European Council for Nuclear Research) needed to build something special.
The Millau Viaduct was constructed as part of a project to speed up journeys from Paris to the south of France. The near 2.5 kilometre length of the required bridge wasn't the real problem .
There have been dizzying advances in space exploration technology since, but the Saturn V remains the only launcher to have got man to the moon. Thirteen of these 110-metre tall beasts were launched, with no loss of life, and they boasted extraordinary power.
The Great Pyramid would still be an amazing engineering project if built today, using modern engineering techniques and equipment. Back in the 26th century BC, around 2.3 million blocks of stone were quarried and then painstakingly put in place for this Pharoah's tomb.