The New ‘Seven Wonders of the World’

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and the Seven Wonders of the ‘New World’ have captivated generations of travelers and historians for centuries. Lists declaring different “wonders of the world” have been compiled since antiquity to record some of the world’s most breathtaking natural and man-made historic sites.

Dating back to the 2nd century BCE, the original list was a massive testament to the sheer ingenuity, innovation, and creativity of Earth’s early civilizations. 

In 1999, an initiative was started by Swiss explorer Bernard Weber to update the list and choose the New Seven Wonders of the World from a selection of existing monuments. The results of the 7 Wonders of the New World were announced in 2007 with the Pyramids of Giza, the only remaining original wonder, being named as an honorary wonder. 

In addition to all being UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the New 7 Wonders of the World are all architectural sites of enormous scale and are among some of the most visited tourist attractions in the world.

The Seven Wonders of the New World 

The Great Wall of China (China)

Christ the Redeemer (Rio De Janeiro, Brazil)

Machu Picchu (Peru)

Chichen Itza (Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico)

The Roman Colosseum (Rome, Italy) 

The Taj Mahal (Agra, India) 

Petra (Jordan)

Many LIFE photographers have captured these spectacular sites, and below you will find images from the seven dynamic destinations. 

The Great Wall of China

The Great Wall Of China, 1920.

Mansell Collection / LIFE Picture Collection

U.S. President, Richard Nixon, visit The Great Wall of China, 1972.

John Dominis / LIFE Picture Collection

From the September 8, 1941 issue of LIFE: “From a plane, you can see the Great Wall of China, writhing and coiling like a frozen dragon across 1,500 miles of the North.”

Christ the Redeemer

Christ The Redeemer Statue, 1941.

Hart Preston / LIFE Picture Collection

Christ the Redeemer, Tijuca Forest on the Corcovado Mountain, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1973.

Alfred Eisenstaedt / LIFE Picture Collection

Machu Picchu 

View of terraces in the ancient Incan city of Machu Picchu, 1947.

Dmitri Kessel / LIFE Picture Collection

The Ruins of Machu Picchu, 1945.

Frank Scherschel / LIFE Picture Collection

Incan ruins at Machu Picchu, 1948.

Dmitri Kessel / LIFE Picture Collection

A view showing the temple with the alter and sundial at Machu Picchu in Urubamba , Peru, 1945.

Frank Scherschel / LIFE Picture Collection

From the January 19, 1968 issue of LIFE: “Locked between two massive peaks of the Andes, and balanced at the edge of sheer, menacing abyss, lie the ruined palaces and temples of an Incan City. Machu Picchu. The jungle growths that obscured Machu Picchu for centuries have been cleared away. But the natives swear the ancient gods still linger, laughing and whispering among themselves.”

Chichen Itza

The Mayan temple, Chichen Itza, in ruins, Mexico, 1946.

Dmitri Kessel / LIFE Picture Collection

Ancient Mayan city of Chichen Itza built by Mayans in 6th century dedicated to a godlike leader, Kukulcan, 1946.

Dmitri Kessel / LIFE Picture Collection

Cultural site in Central America, Chichen Itza, Yucatan.

Mansell Collection / LIFE Picture Collection

Cultural Site in Central America, Chichen Itza, Yucutan.

Mansell Collection / LIFE Picture Collection

The Roman Colosseum 

A view showing the interior of the Colosseum in Rome, Italy in 1940.

Thomas D. McAvoy / LIFE Picture Collection

Exterior view of the Roman Colosseum, Italy, 1940.

Thomas D. McAvoy / LIFE Picture Collection

A night-time view of the ruins of the Roman Colosseum, Italy, 1940.

Carl Mydans / LIFE Picture Collection

Crowds of people in the city near the Roman Colosseum, 1944.

George Silk / LIFE Picture Collection

Taj Mahal

On tour with the United Service Organizations in the China-Burma-India theater of World War II, India, December 1944.

US Army Signal Corps / The LIFE Picture Collection

Aerial view of the famed Taj Mahal, 1944.

Thomas D. McAvoy / LIFE Picture Collection

Taj Mahal by Moonlight, 1952.

James Burke / LIFE Picture Collection

Mrs. John F. Kennedy during tour of India visiting the Taj Mahal, 1962.

Art Rickerby / LIFE Picture Collection

From the August 31, 1962 issue of LIFE: “Shimmering in the moonlight as delicate and cool as its own white marble skin, the Taj Mahal at Agra, India floats in a romantic dream which has charmed tourists for 300 years and has made ‘The Taj’ the most famous mausoleum in the world.”

Petra

Petra, Jordan.

Mansell Collection / LIFE Picture Collection

Petra, Jordan.

Mansell Collection / LIFE Picture Collection

Petra, Jordan.

Mansell Collection / LIFE Picture Collection

From the October 31, 1949 issue of LIFE: “Hidden in a narrow, sheer-sided valley in the craggy wilderness of southern Trans-Jordan are the ruins of the strangest city ever built by man. Its name is Petra, which means ‘rock,’ and is aptly named. For here, carved like giant cameos into the faces of towering pink and orange cliffs, are hundreds of tombs, temples, and palaces whose severe classic beauty stands out in fantastic contrast to the windworn living rock of which they are a part.”

A Holiday Icon: The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree

The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree in Manhattan is the epitome of New York’s holiday season. With humble beginnings, the tree is considered an international symbol of Christmas and is ceremoniously lit every year on the Wednesday after Thanksgiving. Let’s dive deeper into the history behind this iconic holiday symbol and view photos of the famous tree from LIFE’s vast archive.

In December 1931, at the height of the Great Depression, construction workers building the Rockefeller Center complex pooled their money together to buy a 20-foot balsam fir Christmas tree to put up outside of the center. Two years later, in 1933, Rockefeller Center made the tree an annual tradition, and the first Christmas tree-lighting ceremony took place.

The size of the tree and its decorations grew more elaborate over the years; and, in 1951, the first televised tree lighting ceremony aired. Other traditions also began to take shape, including the now infamous collection of herald angels in the Channel Gardens and the larger-than-life Swarovski star that adorns the top of the tree. 

Between 70-100 feet, the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree is usually a Norway spruce, and it remains on display through the start of the New Year. After the holiday season, the famous tree is taken down, turned into lumber, donated to Habitat for Humanity, and used to build homes for those in need. 

The Rockefeller Center Christmas tree will be lit for the 2023 holiday season during a special ceremony on Wednesday, November 29th. Watch the world’s most famous Christmas tree come to life during the Christmas at Rockefeller Center special airing on NBC. 

You can also find a historical anecdote about the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree from an original 1972 issue of LIFE magazine by clicking here.  

Rockefeller Center Christmas tree at night, 1952.

Alfred Eisenstaedt / LIFE Picture Collection

People walking near the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree during a snowstorm, New York City, New York, 1948.

Al Fenn / LIFE Picture Collection Al Fenn / LIFE Picture Collection

Christmas decorations at Rockefeller Plaza, New York City, New York, 1949.

Andreas Feininger / LIFE Picture Collection

Aerial wide-angle view of Rockefeller Center skating rink and Christmas tree, 1956.

Yale Joel / LIFE Picture Collection

Christmas tree being set-up in Rockefeller Center.

Bill Ray / LIFE Picture Collection

Christmas Tree being removed from Rockefeller Center.

Bill Ray / LIFE Picture Collection

Christmas tree being removed from Rockefeller Center.

Bill Ray / LIFE Picture Collection

Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree turned into mulch.

Bill Ray / LIFE Picture Collection

Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree turned into mulch.

Bill Ray / LIFE Picture Collection

Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree turned into mulch.

Bill Ray / LIFE Picture Collection

Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, 1940.

Nina Leen / LIFE Picture Collection

People gathering near Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, New York City, New York, 1940.

Nina Leen / LIFE Picture Collection

Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree at night, 1952.

Alfred Eisenstaedt / LIFE Picture Collection

Rockefeller Center Christmas tree at night.

LIFE Picture Collection

Her Perfect Refuge: Mae West in Vegas

The combination of Mae West and Las Vegas seems like a natural match. Both made their names on crowd-pleasing raunch. She famously declared “Too much a good thing can be wonderful,” and that phrase could easily serve the civic motto of the glitzy playground in the desert.

In 1954 she opened up a nightclub act at the Sahara hotel, and LIFE photographer Loomis Dean was on hand to capture the spectacle. His pictures show West, who was born in 1893, as a woman ahead of her time. She took the stage surrounded by proto-Chippendales in loincloths, each man more ostentatiously muscled than the next. The sexagenarian woman was presented as the lord of her domain.

But the reason that West ended up in Las Vegas something less than a fantasy. She was there because Hollywood couldn’t handle her.

West had initially made her name in movies with a string of hits that brightened up the Great Depression, but that was before Hollywood censors got to work and essentially put an end to her film career.

In a director’s statement that accompanied Dirty Blonde, an episode of PBS’s American Masters devoted to West, Sally Rosenthal and Julia Marchesi recounted how West’s sexualized screen persona suffered a death from a thousand cuts:

The censors began editing her screenplays with heavy strokes, obliterating her saucy dialogue and rendering jokes senseless. For a while, West was able to work around it with double entendres and suggestive intonations, but the censors began rejecting finished films and ordering costly reshoots with their own story changes. The films grew dull; audiences grew bored. Ticket sales fell. Moviegoers opted for a bubbly Shirley Temple over a neutered Mae West. The Hollywood Reporter labeled West “box office poison,” and her film career was over.

Las Vegas offered her a chance to become her old, untamed self. And the showroom of the Sahara proved to be the perfect place to reconnect with her former audience, many of whom were now in retirement age and happy to see a performer they had enjoyed decades before.

The Vegas run proved to be a last hurrah, at least in public. When she was done with Vegas, she went for the classic Mae West ending, moving to Beverly Hills with one of the musclemen from her show, who happened to be thirty years younger than she was.

According to Rosenthal and Marchesi, she remained a relatively private person from then on:

Other than occasional television appearances – including an exceptionally popular episode of Mister Ed – West mostly kept to herself. She rarely went out during the day, to avoid the aging effects of the sun. She insisted to interviewers that she could still pass for 26, and rejected the role of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, as well as roles in Pal Joey and various Fellini movies – roles that she felt would ridicule her persona and undermine her identity as a comedic sex symbol. She would eventually make two more films, under the condition that she have creative control and could rewrite her lines as she saw fit. Both films flopped; audiences were uncomfortable with the spectacle of an older woman with a voracious sexual appetite. By the 1970s, sex was no longer a taboo subject – but in presenting a post-menopausal woman with a powerful libido, West had found one last line audiences were still not ready to cross.

If she had to leave the public with a last impression, she could do worse than the one captured in Loomis’s images—that of a woman totally in command, and completely herself.

Mae West preparing to go on stage for her Las Vegas nightclub act, 1954.

Loomis Dean/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Mae West (center) made her nightclub debut with loin-clothed dancers at Hotel Sahara in Las Vegas, 1954.

Loomis Dean/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Mae West (center) performed at the Hotel Sahara in Las Vegas, 1954.

Loomis Dean/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Mae West (center) performed at the Hotel Sahara in Las Vegas, 1954.

Loomis Dean/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Mae West (center) and her crew of muscly dancers performed her nightclub act at the Hotel Sahara in Las Vegas, 1954.

Loomis Dean/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Mae West (center) performed at the Hotel Sahara in Las Vegas, 1954.

Loomis Dean/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Mae West (left) performed at the Hotel Sahara in Las Vegas, 1954.

Loomis Dean/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Mae West (center) performed at the Hotel Sahara in Las Vegas, 1954.

Loomis Dean/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Mae West (right) performed at the Hotel Sahara in Las Vegas, 1954.

Loomis Dean/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Mae West performed at the Hotel Sahara in Las Vegas, 1954.

Loomis Dean/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Mae West (center) performed at the Hotel Sahara in Las Vegas, 1954.

Loomis Dean/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Mae West performed at the Hotel Sahara in Las Vegas, 1954.

Loomis Dean/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Mae West backstage at the Hotel Sahara with one of the co-stars of her Las Vegas show, 1954.

Loomis Dean/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Def Leppard: Their Rousing, Rocking, Remarkable Journey

The following is from LIFE’s new special issue on Def Leppard, available at newsstands and online.

It was a mighty big stage for such a risky experiment. On August 16, 1986, the seventh annual Monsters of Rock festival took place in Castle Donnington, England, in front of 80,000 fans.  Def Leppard had become one of the biggest rock bands in the world with their breakthrough 1983 album Pyromania, which sold more than 6 million copies, though this popularity hadn’t fully swept their native U.K., where the record only peaked at No. 18 on the charts. At Monsters of Rock the band was slated in the middle of a bill of heavy-metal all-stars, coming on stage after Motörhead and just before the Scorpions and the headliner, Ozzy Osbourne.

Part of the reason for this placement may also have been concerns around Def Leppard’s lineup. On New Year’s Eve 1984, while the group was on a holiday break from recording, drummer Rick Allen had crashed his car on a country road, severing his left arm. But Allen trained himself to play a specially designed drum kit by using his legs to take on some of the parts usually handled by the arms.

Before Donington, the band did a quick six-date warm-up tour in Ireland. The plan was for Allen to play alongside another drummer, but after the additional player showed up late for one of the gigs, Allen handled the final two dates by himself. Now, less than 20 months after his accident, he was at Monsters of Rock before a full—extra full, in fact—audience.
The eyes of the music world were on Def Leppard, and fans and the press were skeptical that this unprecedented comeback was viable. To make things all the more challenging, it was pouring rain.

“It’s not like I could consult with a book called One-Armed Drummers,” Allen has said, noting that his physical transformation inevitably changed his style. “Everything I did I had to figure out for myself.”

Over an 11-song set, the Castle Donington performance proved to be a triumph. “Stagefright” was the (perhaps inevitable) opener, with its first line “I said, welcome to my show!” When the band played their ferocious cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Travelin’ Band” as an encore, singer Joe Elliott introduced “Mr. Ricky Allen on the drums,” and the soggy crowd went crazy.

The next chapter of Def Leppard’s remarkable, unlikely, and highly uplifting career had begun—and though this wouldn’t be the last time the band stared down tragedy, they would ultimately emerge not only intact but bigger than ever. Their next album, 1987’s Hysteria, would surpass the heights reached by Pyromania and become one of the best-selling albums of all time. More than 40 years after their formation, Elliott, Allen, bassist Rick Savage, and guitarists Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell are Rock & Roll Hall of Famers, still topping the charts and playing to sold-out stadiums.

“The guy lost his arm in a car accident and then decided he was going to learn how to play drums with his foot,” says singer-songwriter Matt Nathanson, who released an EP of Def Leppard covers in 2018. “That is, in and of itself, a story that should carry them for the rest of their life in terms of showing their resilience and their drive and power and love of playing music together.”

Looking back on Allen’s accident decades later, Elliott described how the rest of Def Leppard never wavered in their support for their bandmate and the greater significance of the challenging crossroads in the group’s history. “We said, ‘Okay, he’s in this band until he says he isn’t.’ We’re not going to fire him because of an accident. . . . It showed the humanity within the band, the true friendship, because we’d been through some trauma before then, but this was major league.

“That was the beginning of us realizing that it’s not just a band,” Elliott added. “It’s a band of brothers.”

Here are a selection of photos from LIFE’s new special issue on Def Leppard:

Cover photography by Ross Halfin; Photo colorization by Jordan J. Lloyd/Unseen Histories

Lead songwriter and guitarist Steve Clark, bassist Rick Savage, lead singer Joe Elliott and drummer Rick Allen of Def Leppard performed at The Fabulous Fox Theater on Sept. 4, 1981 in Atlanta, Georgia.

Tom Hill/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty

Def Leppard in 1983, right before the success of their Pyromania album would elevate the band into the stratosphere.

Michael Montfort/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty

Phil Collen, then a recent addition to the band, showed his chops in a performance at Brendan Byrne Arena in East Rutherford, N.J., 1983.

Ebet Roberts/Redferns/Getty

During their Hysteria tour Def Leppard performed in San Remo, Italy in 1988.

Duncan Raban/Popperfoto

Taylor Swift took to the stage with Def Leppard in 2008 for a concert that aired on CMT.

Rick Diamond/WireImage/Getty

Def Lepppard’s Joe Elliott and Gene Simmons of Kiss shared a moment during their joint tour in 2014 after completing the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge in Noblesville, Indiana.

Michael Hickey/Getty

Def Leppard celebrated their induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with a performance with Brian May of Queen (center) during ceremonies at the Barclay Center in Brooklyn in 2019.

Mike Coppola/WireImage/Getty

Marilyn, Arthur Miller and More: A Star Producer’s Spectacular Orbit

If the distinctive name of Kermit Bloomgarden doesn’t ring a bell today, that’s to be expected. Even when he was at the height of his powers in the 1950s, he wasn’t particularly known to the general public—even if his works were.

Bloomgarden was a theatrical producer and a force behind of such enduring classics as Death of a Salesman and The Music Man, along with many other prominent titles, including The Diary of Anne Frank, Look Homeward, Angel, and Equus.

His success explains why LIFE, for a story its December 22, 1958 issue titled “People at the Top of the Entertainment World,” shone its spotlight on Bloomgarden. Wrote LIFE, “Little known to the public, Bloomgarden is unsurpassed at the complex job of choosing plays, directors, actors, and meshing them all together smoothly,”

Bloomgarden’s influence also explains the many stars that appear alongside him in the pictures taken by LIFE photographer Robert W. Kelley. Luminaries shown with Bloomgarden include actor Anthony Perkins, who starred in Look Homeward Angel before moving on to his career-defining role in Psycho. The man who Bloomgarden chose to direct Perkins in that play was George Roy Hill, seen here lunching with Bloomgarden, would go on to direct such movies as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

But the most glamorous figures in Bloomgarden’s orbit were undoubtedly Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe. Bloomgarden had not only produced Miller’s classic Death of a Salesman but also another play of his, A View from the Bridge, in 1955.

And Bloomgarden was connected to Monroe not only through Miller but also through her close friend Susan Strasberg, who was photographed separately by Kelley and had starred in Bloomgarden’s production of The DIary of Anne Frank. In addition to being an actress, Strasberg was the daughter of Lee Strasberg, the legendary acting coach who taught Monroe. In 1992 Susan Strasberg wrote the memoir Marilyn & Me: Sisters, Rivals and Friends.

Kelley’s photos Monroe and Miller hosting Bloomgarden in their Manhattan apartment, sitting in the living room and gathering around the piano for a light-hearted shoot. When these photos were taken, Miller and Monroe were in the middle of what would be a five-year marriage, and they look very much the happy couple. It’s telling of Bloomgarden’s position in his world that he looked very much at home with the most glamorous couple in America—even if the former accountant stayed in his coat and tie.

Broadway producer Kermit Bloomgarden with Arthur Miller (left) and Marilyn Monroe in their Manhattan apartment, 1958.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Broadway producer Kermit Bloomgarden with Marilyn Monroe in her Manhattan apartment, 1958.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marilyn Monroe poured a drink in her Manhattan apartment with theatrical producer Kermit Bloomgarden and her husband Arthur Miller in the background, 1958.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

In her Manhattan apartment Marilyn Monroe poured a drink with her husband, playwright Arthur Miller (mostly obscured, at extreme left) and theatrical producer Kermit Bloomgardensit in the background, 1958.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Theatrical producer Kermit Bloomgarden (right) visiting with playwright Arthur Miller his wife, actress Marilyn Monroe, in their Manhattan apartment, 1958.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marilyn Monroe hugging her husband, Arthur Miller in their apartment in New York, 1958.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Kermit Bloomgarden visited Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller at their apartment in New York, 1958.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Theatrical producer Kermit Bloomgarden visited Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller at their apartment in New York, 1958.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Theatrical producer Kermit Bloomgarden with Marilyn Monroe at her New York apartment, 1958.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Theatrical producer Kermit Bloomgarden posed in his New York office, 1958.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Kermit Bloomgarden visited with Anthony Perkins, who starred in Bloomgarden’s stage production of Look Homeward, Angel.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

New York producer Kermit Bloomgarden (right) hugged actress Susan Strasberg in 1958; she played the title role in his production of The Diary of Anne Frank.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Producter Kermit Bloomgarden and Susan Strasberg, who had starred in his production of The Diary of Anne Frank, walked in New York City, 1958.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

New York producer Kermit Bloomgarden (center) had lunch in 1958 with director George Roy Hill (left) and playwright Ketti Frings (right), who both worked on Bloomgarden’s production of Look Homeward, Angel. The play would earn Frings the Pulitzer Prize.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

New York producer Kermit Bloomgarden (R) having dinner with actor Robert Preston (left, and star of Bloomgarden’s The Music Man) and his wife, actor Peter Ustinov (third from left) and actress Celeste Holm (center) at George M. Cohan Corner, 1958.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

New York producer Kermit Bloomgarden (center) auditioned dancers, 1958.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

New York producer Kermit Bloomgarden (center) auditioned dancers, 1958.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Inside Volkswagen: The Mass Production of an Automotive Icon

Most people who have ever owned a Volkswagen Beetle or, say, an early, split-windshield VW bus or even a Karmann Ghia will swear that those uncomfortable, relatively bare-bones vehicles were among the favorite cars they’ve ever driven. They’re not for everyone, of course but for a certain breed of driver, the old-school VWs offered a rare combination of economy, ease of maintenance (this writer, stranded far from any garage, once repaired a busted accelerator cable on a ’67 bug with 12-pound-test fishing line) and, most importantly, personality that so many other mass-produced automobiles lacked.

The story of Volkswagen, meanwhile, is among the most fascinating and, in some regards, most troubling of any car manufacturer in existence. One well-documented example of VW’s paradoxical history: in its early days, during World War II, Volkswagen used slave labor (the company has admitted as much) to build vehicles for the Nazi war effort; decades later, the archetypal Volkswagens, the Beetle and the Type 2 bus, would become the four-wheeled symbols of the “peace and love” movement of the 1960s. From Hitler to hippies: not many other companies, automobile or otherwise, can lay claim to that sort of stranger-than-fiction corporate narrative.

Here, LIFE.com offers a series of photos made by Walter Sanders at the company’s famous Wolfsburg plant in 1951. A refugee from Hitler’s Germany himself, who fled his native country the same year VW began making cars, Sanders captures in these pictures of the factory and the factory workers a nation in the process of recreating itself. Here, in black and white, is a portrait of the labor and mechanization that would again make Germany (well, West Germany, anyway) one of the world’s most powerful economies before the end of the century.

Liz Ronk edited this gallery for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter @lizabethronk.

Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Volkswagen’s main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Walter Sanders/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Volkswagen’s main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Walter Sanders/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Volkswagen’s main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Walter Sanders/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Volkswagen’s main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Walter Sanders/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Volkswagen’s main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Walter Sanders/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Volkswagen’s main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Walter Sanders/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Volkswagen’s main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Walter Sanders/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Volkswagen’s main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Walter Sanders/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Volkswagen’s main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Walter Sanders/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Volkswagen’s main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Walter Sanders/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Volkswagen’s main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Walter Sanders/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Volkswagen’s main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Walter Sanders/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Volkswagen’s main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Walter Sanders/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Volkswagen’s main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Walter Sanders/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Volkswagen 1951

Walter Sanders Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Volkswagen’s main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Walter Sanders/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Volkswagen’s main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Walter Sanders/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Volkswagen’s main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Walter Sanders/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Volkswagen’s main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Walter Sanders/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Wolfsburg, Germany, 1951.

Volkswagen’s main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.

Walter Sanders/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

People gathered around a VW bus, 1951.

People gathered around a VW bus, 1951.

Walter Sanders/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

People gaze at photographer Walter Sanders through the open roll-top of a VW bus, 1951.

People gaze through the open roll top of a VW bus, 1951.

Walter Sanders/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A young woman and man enjoy themselves beside a VW cabriolet, 1951.

A young woman and man beside a VW cabriolet, 1951.

Walter Sanders/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

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