Friends of Li Guojun drive a homemade tank-shaped vehicle in Kangping county, China. Li, a farmer who is a fan of tanks, spent six months with help from his friends to construct the almost 20-foot vehicle which weighs 2.5 tons. (Photo by Sheng Li/Reuters)

Arizona Cardinals cheerleader Claire Thorton, center, smiles as Air Force Capt. Eric Straub proposes to her during the first half of an NFL football game against the Washington Redskins, Sunday, October 12, 2014, in Glendale, Ariz. Thorton accepted the proposal. (Photo by Rick Scuteri/AP Photo)

Satarupa Chakraborty, 5, dressed as a Kumari, yawns while she is worshipped by a Hindu priest during the religious festival of Durga Puja in Agartala October 2, 2014. (Photo by Jayanta Dey/Reuters)

Emma the Maltese's fur blows in the wind as she rides in her owner's purse on 5th Avenue at Central Park in New York December 2, 2014. (Photo by Carlo Allegri/Reuters)

A dachshund portraying a racehorse, trots down Duval Street in Key West, Florida, December 31, 2014. About 175 dachshunds and other dogs participated in the event that preludes four warm-weather takeoffs on New York City's Times Square ball drop. (Photo by Steve Panariello/Reuters/Florida Keys News Bureau)

A man dressed in a condom costume walks at Caleta Portales beach, during a summer awareness campaign by the Chilean Corporation for the Prevention of AIDS in Valparaiso city, northwest of Santiago January 9, 2015. (Photo by Rodrigo Garrido/Reuters)

Protesters wear masks, the left in the colors of the Kenyan national flag, as they join others carrying mock coffins and red-painted crosses, symbolizing the blood of the 28 non-Muslims singled out and killed in the recent attack on a bus in Mandera by Somali militant group al-Shabab, outside government offices in downtown Nairobi, Kenya Tuesday, November 25, 2014. (Photo by Ben Curtis/AP Photo)

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”)