Joyeux Anniversaire Eiffel Tower!

The Eiffel Tower celebrates is 127th birthday today. Here are a few facts about the world’s most visited paid monument…

• The Eiffel Tower was built for the 1889 Paris Exposition and was not intended to be permanent.
• The Eiffel Tower was going to be demolished in 1909, but was saved because it was repurposed as a giant radio antenna.
• During WW2, when Hitler visited Paris, the French cut the lift cables on the Eiffel Tower so that Hitler would have to climb the steps if he wanted to reach the top.
• The Eiffel Tower was originally intended for Barcelona, Spain, but the project was rejected.
  Inventor Franz Reichelt died by jumping from the Eiffel Tower while testing a parachute of his own design.
• 1,665 steps are needed to climb all the way to the top of the Eiffel Tower.
  A woman named Erika La Tour Eiffel “married” the Eiffel Tower in 2007.
• The height of the Eiffel Tower varies by 5.9 inches (15 cm) due to temperature changes.
• There are 20,000 light bulbs on the Eiffel Tower.
• There are over 30 replicas of the Eiffel Tower around the world.
• The paint on the Eiffel Tower weighs as much as 10 elephants.
• Gustave Eiffel, the man who designed the Eiffel Tower, was also behind the design for the Statue of Liberty’s spine, and had an apartment for himself at the top of the Eiffel Tower.
• At the time of its construction, the Eiffel Tower was the tallest building in the world.
• 300 workers, 18,038 pieces of wrought iron and 2.5 million rivets were needed to build the Eiffel Tower.
• If the Eiffel Tower was built today, it would cost about US$31 million.