Young female Ibex on the fork of Disteis (2,200 m), near the top of the Jof di Montasio (Friuli, Italy). (Photo by Stefano Zocca)

Police officers try to stop medical students as they protest against Sri Lanka's crippling economic crisis, outside the Health Ministry in Colombo on April 6, 2022. (Photo by Ishara S. Kodikara/AFP Photo)

Demonstrators who blocked a main road with their vehicle to demand fuel near President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's residence, argue with a police officer, during the country's economic crisis, in Colombo, Sri Lanka on June 29, 2022. (Photo by Dinuka Liyanawatte/Reuters)

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”)