A History of Rebuilding America

President Bush promises "one of the largest reconstruction efforts the world has ever seen" to rebuild the Gulf Coast in the wake of Katrina.

The Associated Press has a rundown of America's biggest reconstruction efforts to date:

• Reconstruction, 1867-77: 1,000 schools built in the south, civil rights and social reform enacted during post-Civil War occupation of the former Confederacy
• WPA (right), 1935-43: 116,000 buildings, 78,000 bridges, 651,000 miles of road -- employed 8.5 million people
• Tennessee Valley Authority, 1930s - Present: Built dams and flood control efforts over a seven-state region -- and produced the massive amounts of electricity needed later by the Manhattan Project
• Marshall Plan, 1948: Actually Harry S Truman's brainchild though named after Secretary of State George Marshall to get it through Congress, rebuilt Europe at a cost of $13.3 billion dollars -- and was largely credited with stalling Communist expansion

The Bush plan for the Gulf Coast is expected to cost well over $200 billion. (AP)