Marine Studios, created through the partnership of W. Douglas Burden, C.V. Whitney, and Count Ilia Tolstoy, opened in 1938 as an attraction designed both for filmmakers to shoot underwater footage and for visitors to see marine life live and up close, drawing an estimated 20,000 people to the opening of the world’s first oceanarium. During the 1940s it developed into one of the world’s leading marine research institutions. In the 1950s, with help from trainers from the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus, Marine Studios became the birthplace of dolphin training, and dolphin shows helped elevate the attraction, then called Marineland, into one of Florida’s most popular tourist destinations. It also gave scientists opportunities to study dolphin behavior and led to the discovery of echolocation, also known as biosonar. Marineland was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986, closed for a complete renovation in 2004, was converted into a dolphin conservation center in 2006 after many buildings were torn down, and was purchased and rehabilitated by Georgia Aquarium in 2011.