Notas del episodio
The tower began in 1884 as a sketch by two engineers at Gustave Eiffel's firm, Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier, for the 1889 World's Fair marking the centennial of the French Revolution. Architect Stephen Sauvestre added the arches and glass pavilion, and Eiffel bought the patent and put up half the capital. One financier, the bank CIC, was profiting from loans tied to an indemnity imposed on Haiti. Paris's artistic elite, including Opera architect Charles Garnier, formed the Committee of 300 against it. Work began in January 1887 with pressurized caissons sunk 22 meters into the riverbank mud, and 18,038 parts and 2.5 million rivets went up with a one millimeter tolerance. Only one of about 300 workers died.
Nearly two million people visited during the fair, but the land deal meant the tower would revert to the city and could be scrapped in 1909. Eiffel made it indispensable as a laboratory and antenna. In 1910 Father Theodor Wulf measured higher radiation at the top than the bottom, early evidence of cosmic rays, and the tower broadcast time signals. In 1914 it jammed German radio at the First Battle of the Marne, and in 1917 it intercepted the message that led to Mata Hari's arrest. In 1940 the French cut the elevator cables before the occupation, and in 1944 General von Choltitz ignored Hitler's order to destroy it.
- The curved legs calculated so sideways wind becomes downward compression into the foundations
- Otis hydraulic elevators on inclined tracks, powered by a water reservoir on the second level
- Guy de Maupassant eating lunch at the tower daily because it was the one place in Paris he could not see it
- German soldiers climbing the stairs twice after the wind tore away their oversized flag
- Puddle iron that tilts the top up to 18 centimeters away from the sun, and a copyright on the nighttime lighting