The Confederate flag that appeared atop the dome of the State House in 1962 symbolized a political and economic structure, defiance not only against the civil rights movement but against the whole range of social dissent emerging in that decade.
South Africa rules the territory through semi-autonomous internal structures in defiance of several United Nations resolutions.
Now overrun by monsoon-fed mangrove forests, the structures stand in defiance of a society that has, over several decades, attempted the erasure of its Muslim population.
It is the perfect introduction to complex ideas: oppressive socio-economic political structures, forms of resistance and defiance, and the point at which violence becomes justifiable.
The City of London Corporation's chief planning officer called for the demolition of buildings damaged in the explosion, including the NatWest Tower, seeing an opportunity to rid the City of some of the 1970s architecture and build a new state-of-the-art structure as a "symbol of defiance to the IRA".
Even in many European and Asian societies that had retained traditional family structures and community ties, in long defiance of the economic currents pushing against them, young people today are leading lives driven and shaped by personal choice.
But many projects seem to be undertaken in defiance of climate change, leaving structures nearly as vulnerable as before.
Each "me too" feels like an act of defiance in the face of that power structure, one drop in a mounting wave that is surging toward the shores of justice.
But an examination of projects across the country's ever-expanding flood zones reveals that decisions to rebuild in place, often made seemingly in defiance of climate change, have at times left structures just as defenseless against the next storm.
When hundreds of police officers entered Zuccotti Park early on Nov. 15, they dismantled tents and other structures that had been erected by Occupy Wall Street protesters in defiance of rules established in September by the park's owner, Brookfield Properties.
The South Carolina State House, a grand, copper-domed structure in downtown Columbia, is a showplace for the state's long history of hellbent defiance.
