![]() ![]() Portugal has also learned the lessons of Seville's 1992 Expo. Further, by situating the fair on a former industrial wasteland, the government has set in motion a vast program of urban renewal. Thus, Expo '98 has become the occasion for restoring historic buildings and improving Lisbon's thoroughfares and public transportation. Still, the $2-billion spent on the show would be a stiff price to pay were Expo '98 no more than public relations, but, for all their new national pride, the Portuguese remain a pragmatic lot. Their messages are many: With oceans covering 70 percent of the world's surface, Planet Earth should really be called Planet Water the oceans that gave birth to life are now being polluted to death the oceans, the first highway of communication between distant civilizations, remain the last unexplored frontier and, yes, if Portugal's empire once stretched from Brazil to Angola and Mozambique as far as Goa, Macao and East Timor, it was thanks to its intrepid navigators. The story of the oceans, past, present and future, is recounted in six thematic pavilions, while the participating nations (including landlocked countries such as Switzerland and Bolivia) have created pavilions that also deal with water, rivers, seas and oceans. Architects, challenged to design a complex for the millennium, have created the most futuristic and glistening little metropolis on Earth 146 countries agreed to take part, and, between now and the end of September, 15-million visitors are expected. On a 150-acre, semi-derelict industrial site on the banks of the Tagus, engineers and workers have laid 10 miles of paved streets and planted 30,000 trees and enough grass for 38 soccer fields. Echoing its 15th-, 16th- and 17th-century history as a great seafaring nation, Portugal chose as its Expo theme "The Oceans: a Heritage for the Future." In the face of stiff competition from Toronto, Lisbon won the right to stage Expo '98. He sailed home a rich man, returning four years later to hideously punish the town for anti-Portuguese activity in his absence, but in Portugal da Gama remains semi-divine (Expo's great tower is named after him), while India, showing its customary tolerance, is a participating country in the Expo, though perhaps with a faint sense of irony. ![]() Da Gama, instead, found the Indian spice port of Calicut. The Expo actually celebrates the 500th anniversary of the year Vasco da Gama was sent east by Manuel the Fortunate to find Prester John, the Christian king.
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