Participants compete to do nothing during the Space-out competition at World Expo 2025 on September 27, 2025 in Osaka, Japan. For 90 minutes, participants sat in silence, trying to remain in a dazed state without distraction. The winner was determined not by activity but by calmness maintaining the most stable heart rate amid the lively crowds of the Osaka Expo site. (Photo by Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images)

While the lido was described as bringing “modernism to the masses” on the British coast it was just the latest example of a trend that had been developing since Victorian times – transforming seaside towns into resorts for leisure and entertainment. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the fashion was for local authorities to build great piers stretching from the promenade out into the sea. The Eastbourne Pier, pictured here in May 1931, was erected between 1866 and 1870 to an ingenious design by Eugenius Birch, which saw the structure sitting on special cups allowing the supporting struts to “move” in bad weather. Arranged on the pier's 1,000-foot length were kiosks, a theatre, a ballroom and a camera obscura. 1931. (Photo by Aerofilms Collection via “A History of Britain From Above”)

Ghanaian fans take a selfie prior to a Group G football match between Germany and Ghana at the Castelao Stadium in Fortaleza during the 2014 FIFA World Cup on June 21, 2014. (Photo by Patrik Stollarz/AFP Photo)

A shoebill is displayed at Ueno Zoo in Tokyo August 28, 2012. (Photo by Itsuo Inouye/Associated Press)

A Chinese vendor wears a rooster hat as he smokes a cigarette at his souvenir stall at a fair at Temple of Earth, on the eve of Chinese New Year February 8, 2005 in Beijing, China. Chinese started February 8, to celebrate the New Year of the Rooster. (Photo by Andrew Wong/Getty Images)

A player breaks with the bottle during the bottle-kicking game in Hallaton, central England April 6, 2015. The game is played between Hallaton and the neighbouring village of Medbourne each Easter Monday in which participants compete to bring the bottle across a stream that separates the villages. The bottle is an old field barrel holding about a gallon of beer. (Photo by Darren Staples/Reuters)

Chinese women ride a bicycle together on a street September 10, 2014 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

Winton Elementary fifth graders Juliana Ragan, from left, Chloe Windsor and Paisley Ganske wait backstage for their turn to perform as the Andrew Sisters during the Pearl Harbor/Veterans assembly at the school on Monday, December 7, 2015, in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Dec. 7 is the 74th anniversary of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. (Photo by Kathy Plonka/The Spokesman-Review via AP Photo)