June 24th: The O2

The O2 in London opened on this date in 2007. Here are ten things you didn't know about the O2, formerly the Millennium Dome.

1. The O2 was originally built as the Millennium Dome, to house an exhibition to celebrate the the turn of the third millennium. The Millennium Experience was open to the public for the whole of the year 2000.
2. It was designed by the architect Richard Rogers.
3. Time is a theme in the construction - not only did it mark a new millennium but it is located near to the Prime Meridian in Greenwich. It has twelve 100m high yellow support towers, one for each month of the year, or each hour on a clock face. It is 365m (one metre for each day in a standard year) in diameter, and is 52m high in the middle – one metre for each week in a year.
4. The canopy is made of one million square feet of PTFE-coated glass fibre fabric. It was constructed separately from the rest of the structure and when finished, put in place by cranes. It is the largest fabric structure in the world.
5. There is a time capsule buried in the foundations. The capsule was buried by Katy Hill and Richard Bacon, then presenters of the BBC children's programme Blue Peter. The capsule is due to be opened in 2050.
6. It opened to the public as the O2 on 24 June 2007, with a concert by Bon Jovi.
7. The Dome was featured in the 1999 James Bond film The World Is Not Enough. Bond rolls down the roof of the Dome.
8. People over 10 years old and weighing less than 20 stone can walk across the roof of the dome on a special walkway. There is a platform in the centre with 360 degree views of London.
9. It’s as tall as the famous London landmark, Nelson's column, and could accommodate the Eiffel Tower lying on its side, or the Statue of Liberty, or the Great Pyramid of Giza.
10. It would take 3.8 billion pints of Beer to fill The O2.