Happy 125th Birthday Eiffel Tower! You don't look a day over 21.
Today marks the 125th birthday of the Eiffel Tower, and as one of my favorite architectural/engineering endevors, I must pay my respects. So in honor of this magnifacant icon, I will like to highlight this great article, also seen here!
It bascially lists 40 interesting facts about the Eiffel Tower, and I thought it would be nice to share my top 10 from the list. Here goes...
1. Completed on March 31, 1889, the tower was the world’s tallest man-made structure for 41 years until the completion of the Chrysler Building in New York in 1930.
2. It is 324 metres tall (including antennas) and weighs 10,100 tonnes.
4. It is possible to climb to the top, but there are 1,665 steps. Most people take the lift.
5. The lifts travel a combined distance of 103,000 km a year – two and a half times the circumference of the Earth.
6. Victor Lustig, a con artist, "sold" the tower for scrap metal on two separate occasions.
7. During cold weather the tower shrinks by about six inches.
8. Gustave Eiffel, the engineer and architect behind the tower, was also involved in a disastrous attempt by the French to build a canal in Panama, and his reputation was badly damaged by the failure of the venture.
9. Eiffel also designed interior elements of the Statue of Liberty.
10. He died while listening to Beethoven's 5th symphony.
11. Since its opening almost 250 million people have visited the tower.
12. Today the tower welcomes almost 7 million people a year, making it the most visited paid-for monument in the world.
13. Its construction took two years, two months and five days - 180 years fewer than Paris's other great attraction, Notre Dame.
14. During the German occupation, the tower's lift cables were cut, and the tower closed to the public. Nazi soldiers then attempted to attach a swastika to the top, but it was so large it blew away and had to be replaced with a smaller one.
and last but not least...
15. In 2008 a woman with an objects fetish married the Eiffel Tower, changing her name to Erika La Tour Eiffel in honour of her ‘partner’.
Well look at that! the Eiffel Tower has a little lady friend. Erika La Tour Eiffel, you and your husband..stay out of touble tonight. Ya hear?!
