As one of the first countries to confirm participation in the Shanghai Expo, Chile decided to build a pavilion of its own instead of renting one as originally planned. That action came even though Chile was later struck by a strong earthquake.
Countries around the world insist on attending the Shanghai Expo because their attendance will boost the world economy, just as the 1933 Chicago World Expo did when the United States was mired in the worst economic crisis in its history.
The U.S. was still immersed in the Great Depression at that time with numerous banks closed and the jobless rate soaring to as high as 25 percent of the country's workers.
But also that year, the Chicago World Expo, named "A Century of Progress," officially opened.
Then U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt said the expo was timely "not only because it marks a century of accomplishment, but it comes at a time when the world needs nothing so much as a better mutual understanding of the peoples of the earth."
