Ballpark Estimate: $7 Billion (1860 dollars); $75 Billion (2008 dollars) In historical terms, the American Civil War was undoubtedly the most significant single event in the formation of a young, divided, and struggling nation. And like all wars there was a cost both in economic losses and in human suffering. Unlike other wars, however, it was particularly…

Ballpark Estimate: $15 Million in 1883; $320 Million in 2007 dollars As the population grew in New York City during the 1830s there was always loose talk of relieving the overcrowded conditions there by building a bridge across the East River to Brooklyn. Building the bridge, the proponents argued, would reduce the congestion in New York City…

Ballpark Estimate: $240 Million (1957 dollars); $1.9 Billion (2007 dollars) Originally called the Midtown Hudson Tunnel, the Lincoln Tunnel is actually the world’s first three-tube underwater vehicular tunnel system. The three so-called “tubes” are known as the North, Center, and South Tunnels, each 21.5 feet wide and designed with two traffic lanes apiece. The tunnels cross the…

Ballpark Estimate: $15 billion With a population of some 2.8 million people, Boston Massachusetts has long been the center of New England’s educational institutions, the Performing Arts, and professional sports. However, along with that distinction Boston was also known for its world-class traffic congestion. The Central Artery Tunnel Project, more commonly known as the “Big Dig”,…

Ballpark Estimate: $2 Billion (1945 dollars); $25 Billion (2008 dollars) At the Alamogordo Bombing Range, now the White Sands Missile Range near Socorro, New Mexico, it was 5:00 a.m. The weather that morning of July 16, 1945 was clear and most importantly; wind conditions were low, ideal for localizing the fallout of radioactive material from the expected…

Ballpark Estimate: $8 Billion (1997 dollars) OIL – needed in enormous quantities by both the industrial as well as the rapidly developing third-world countries, it is a commodity that significantly influences the economy of many major governments. For this reason, when Atlantic Richfield and Humble Oil (now Exxon) announced the presence of oil in Prudhoe Bay,…

Ballpark Estimate: $100 billion (U.S cost including Space Shuttle); $150 billion (total cost to date) Orbiting the earth 15 times every day, the International Space Station continues to provide research in such fields as biology, physics, astronomy, and meteorology. The ISS currently consists of ten modules in low orbit traveling at approximately 17,000 miles per hour at…

Ballpark Estimate: $22 Billion Representing the hallmark of U.S. superiority on the high seas, the nuclear aircraft carrier is the epitome of our nations’ military superpower status. And of the nuclear supercarriers, the Nimitz-class is the newest, largest, and fastest in the world. At nearly 1,100 feet long, the Chrysler building can be laid upon its…

Ballpark Estimate: $650,000 (1912 dollars); $15,000,000 (2008 dollars) It was a balmy Saturday afternoon in Boston on April 20, 1912, the perfect kind of day to spend at the ballpark. And that’s just what 27,000 baseball fans did as they eagerly crowded into a brand new ballpark to watch the home team defeat the New York Highlanders….

Ballpark Estimate: $25.4 Billion (1969 dollars); $145 Billion (2007 dollars) On April 12, 1961, the Soviet Union shocked the world when cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to be launched into space. His single earth-orbit flight aboard the Vostok-1 spacecraft and his safe return to earth was a tremendous achievement and more significantly, it demonstrated to…