#11: Colosseum — Italy
Emperor Titus finished the Colosseum around 80 AD, and it quickly became the heart of Roman entertainment. But that entertainment was brutal. For nearly four centuries, the Colosseum hosted deadly gladiator combats, animal hunts, and public executions. Beneath the arena floor was the hypogeum, a two-level network of tunnels and cages. Here, gladiators and wild beasts waited in darkness before elevators lifted them into the roaring arena. Historians estimate that hundreds of thousands of people and over a million animals perished within its walls. The scale of the carnage that took place here is hard to fathom, and some say the weight of it lingers.
