Story
The story of Eiffel Tower
The 'Iron Lady' was built by Gustave Eiffel's company from 1887 to 1889 as the centrepiece of the 1889 World's Fair, marking the hundredth anniversary of the French Revolution. Its design is credited to two of his senior engineers, Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier. At first, some of France's leading artists and intellectuals criticised it; today it is one of the most recognisable structures in the world.
It is 330 metres tall on a square base 125 metres on each side. It was the tallest structure made by human hands for 41 years, until New York's Chrysler Building was finished in 1930, and the first to pass both 200 and 300 metres. You can climb over 300 steps to the first level and as many again to the second.
The upper platform at the top is 276 metres above the ground, the highest public observation deck in the European Union. Up there, Eiffel kept a private apartment, where he received friends such as Thomas Edison.
This story is compiled from Wikipedia and other open sources; dates and numbers are checked against the source. The text is shared under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Source ↗
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