Since April 2020, when I was in 7th grade I have used the same map of the earth (linked here): https://www.planetminecraft.com/project/complete-earth-map-with-custom-ore-generation-and-accurate-biomes/ with the intention of recreating history and arriving at the present day. Before I get into the lore, here are the important details:

(The map is centered around the pacific)
Spawnpoint is in Paris
Created in Version 1.12.2 but can be loaded in any version


I used the Prefab mod and the Ancient Warfare mod to create a lot of cities and used schematics created by other users on PMC to add realism and wonders afterward.
Schematics used:

Effiel Tower: https://www.planetminecraft.com/project/eiffel-tower/
Some of the schools: https://www.planetminecraft.com/project/dayz-school-rework/
Statue of Liberty: https://www.planetminecraft.com/project/statue-of-liberty-3949627/
Kremlin Gate: https://www.planetminecraft.com/project/moscow-red-square-4324834/
St. Basils https://www.planetminecraft.com/project/st-basils-cathedral-2725917/
Burj Khalifa: https://www.planetminecraft.com/project/burj-khalifa-3262480/
Istanbul: https://www.planetminecraft.com/project/sultan-ahmet-camii-w-i-p/
Colosseum: https://www.planetminecraft.com/project/amphitheater-4619574/
Christ the Redeemer: https://www.planetminecraft.com/project/christ-the-redeemer-5406015/
Reichstag: https://www.planetminecraft.com/project/reichstag-island-1936/
Chichen Itza: https://www.planetminecraft.com/project/chichen-itza-3462656/
Pingan: https://www.planetminecraft.com/project/pingan-international-finance-centre-by-wiggins-creative-labs/
Canton Tower: https://www.planetminecraft.com/project/canton-tower-guangzhou/
Bank of America Tower: https://www.planetminecraft.com/project/bank-of-america-plaza-atlanta-ga/
Amsterdam: https://www.planetminecraft.com/project/dutch-city-block/

I added these schematics very recently while I was restoring the map to make it playable, burying cringe stuff I put from I was 12 underground, and repairing damage from the wars I'd simulate (lmao)



The Lore (how this got created):
Okay, so three years ago, I was obsessed with history since I watched YouTubers like Oversimplified, Alternate History Hub, Potential History etc, and playing games like HOI4 and CIV6
In 2020, the pandemic had set in, and I wanted to find a way to recreate historical events and wars in Minecraft. I had already been fighting mock-wars using mods since 2018, so all I needed was a map. After a lot of searching and a lot of world maps, I decided to stick with this one since I liked how realistic the terrain was, and the navigability of the rivers. My goal with this one was to recreate all of history from 4000 BCE to 2020. That's where this began. After installing a bunch of mods, which are still present in the save file, I created the Ancient world and fought in different ancient wars using swords and modded catapults. The ancient, medieval, and renaissance eras didn't last very long though as I was more interested in modern conflicts. I remember using Custom NPCs to fight the Seven years war, the American Revolution, and the Civil War. By then, a lot of the world had basic infrastructure and roads, books and artifacts, and remnants of what I would do at the time still exist on the map to this day (although I buried most of the books underground because they're pure cringe) World War One is where the most damage and artifacts came from though, I discovered how to create map art propaganda with world painter, which I based in Greenland, and is still there on the map to this day. All the map arts are currently stored in Washington D.C. I also destroyed a lot of Belgium during that recreation of WW1, but I've repaired it somewhat and rebuilt Brussels for the sake of releasing this map. World War Two also had a lot of stuff I had to repair, such as Volgograd, St. Petersburg, and Normandy. The Cold War and Modern Day mostly just has map art I had created, and a few 'lasting impacts' such as the northern Amazon being on fire and underground facilities with tons of TNT minecarts. I then took a 2-year break from the map and Minecraft in general until 2023 (now) when I decided to repair most of the damage, build a bunch of unadded cities, and add wonders to turn this into something beautiful. I decided to keep the artifacts in the world hidden as a way to preserve the history of the map. (I did not create any of the books in the Alexandria Library, those were generated by the Ancient Warfare mod, which I used when building cities.)

tl;dr: there's explosion craters in Belgium and books underground because 3 years ago I was trying to recreate history