After Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453, Russia continued for several centuries to develop a national art that had grown out of the middle Byzantine period.
The main drama arises from Louis Sullivan's efforts, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, to develop a new architectural aesthetic, and from his resulting conflict with the architect Daniel Burnham.
Despite many unsuccessful attempts over half a century to develop it as a commercial power reactor, there is still a strong belief amongst many nuclear advocates that a highly successful HTGR technology will emerge.
Plant breeders have tried for a quarter of a century to develop crops that are immune to the disease by crossing maize with partially resistant native grasses.
More than 170,000 fuel stations now distribute gasoline around the country, and millions of miles of pipelines and thousands of tanker trucks feed into a huge system that took more than a century to develop.
But it also makes some very bad decisions, and those decisions are beginning to tarnish a reputation that took more than half a century to develop.
Although this progress is substantial, it should be tempered by the realization that it took nearly a century to develop the necessary infrastructure to begin to solve the problem, and that far too many children will be poisoned unnecessarily by lead in the coming years unless additional action is taken.
Laurie Doherty, a Wimbledon champion in the early years of the 20th century, started to develop a backhand drive but really the stroke was seen as a passive one, the emphasis being on making sure it was reliable rather than penetrative.
The 18th-century failure to develop a non-Euclidean geometry was rooted in deeply held philosophical beliefs.
From a slate-wiping fresh start, places such as Brasília and Chandigarh needed a full half-century to develop anything like a life of their own.
