http://www.paris-travel-guide.info/eiffel-tower-short-history/
Help me!!!?
Can anyone give me a short history of the Eiffel Tower please???
The Eiffel Tower, Paris >
The plan to build a tower 300 metres high was conceived as part of preparations for the World’s Fair of 1889. Emile Nouguier and Maurice Koechlin, the two chief engineers in Eiffel’s company, had the idea for a very tall tower in June 1884.
It was to be designed like a large pylon with four columns of lattice work girders, separated at the base and coming together at the top, and joined to each other by more metal girders at regular intervals.
The company had by this time mastered perfectly the principle of building bridge supports.
The tower project was a bold extension of this principle up to a height of 300 metres – equivalent to the symbolic figure of 1000 feet.
On September 18 1884 Eiffel registered a patent “for a new configuration allowing the construction of metal supports and pylons capable of exceeding a height of 300 metres”.
http://www.timelineindex.com/content/view/1155
Eiffel Tower History
The Eiffel Tower was built for the International Exhibition of Paris of 1889 commemorating the centenary of the French Revolution. The Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII of England, opened the tower. Of the 700 proposals submitted in a design competition, Gustave Eiffel’s was unanimously chosen.
However it was not accepted by all at first, and a petition of 300 names – including those of Maupassant, Emile Zola, Charles Garnier (architect of the Opéra Garnier), and Dumas the Younger – protested its construction.
At 300 meters (320.75m including antenna), and 7000 tons, it was the world’s tallest building until 1930. Other statistics include:
2.5 million rivets
300 steel workers, and 2 years (1887-1889) to construct it.
Sway of at most 12 cm in high winds.
Height varies up to 15 cm depending on temperature.
15,000 iron pieces (excluding rivets). 40 tons of paint. 1652 steps to the top.
It was almost torn down in 1909, but was saved because of its antenna – used for telegraphy at that time. Beginning in 1910 it became part of the International Time Service. French radio (since 1918), and French television (since 1957) have also made use of its stature.
During its lifetime, the Eiffel Tower has also witnessed a few strange scenes, including being scaled by a mountaineer in 1954, and parachuted off of in 1984 by two Englishmen. In 1923 a journalist rode a bicycle down from the first level. Some accounts say he rode down the stairs, other accounts suggest the exterior of one of the tower’s four legs which slope outward.
http://www.corrosionsource.com/technicallibrary/corrdoctors/Modules/Landmarks/eiffel-history.htm
The Man on the Eiffel Tower