10 World Famous Landmarks That Were Almost Destroyed

3. The Taj Mahal Was Auctioned Off And Nearly Demolished

Built between 1632 and 1653 to house the remains of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan's third wife, Mumtaz Mahal, the Taj Mahal stands on the banks of the Yamuna River in the Indian city of Agra. First attacked by Jat rulers in the 18th Century, the building fell into disrepair after decades of neglect - and was then defaced by British soldiers and government officials during the Indian rebellion of 1857. They chiselled out precious stones from its walls and held picnics and other events in the grounds. Also, in 1828, Lord William Bentinck declared that the Taj must be stripped back and then destroyed in order to raise funds for the government - but, just as the demolition work started, the auction of parts of the building had been abandoned in London. The Taj - which was restored under British viceroy Lord Curzon's orders in the late-18th Century - also faced several bomb threats throughout the 1900s. Fearing a Japanese air strike during World War II, and latterly by the Pakistani airforce during the Indian-Pakistan wars of 1965 and 1971, the Indian government erected scaffolding around the building in an attempt to disguise it. Bizarrely it must have worked - because it remains standing to this day.