Symbol of the whole of France and reference point for the City of Light, o Eiffel Tower Built in 1889 by engineer Gustavo Eiffel and one of the most important buildings in the world, it is 324 meters high and until 1931 was considered the tallest building in the world, a first lost by the Empire State Building in New York.
It weighs 10,000 tons and its construction is so stable that it deviates only 7.5 cm with a very strong wind. These, however, are some of the most widely known information about the much-photographed attraction of Paris. Below you will find three truths unknown to the general public that will surely impress you.
It was the largest billboard in the world
When dusk fell in Paris between 1925 and 1936, 250,000 colored light bulbs connected to the three sides of the tower were illuminated to capture the 30-meter letters of the French carmaker Citroen. The specific advertising illuminated so brightly that it was visible from almost 32 km away, while Charles Lindbergh used it as a “beacon” when he landed in Paris on his solo transatlantic flight in 1927.
He contributed to the arrest of Mata Hari
During World War I, the French army used the tower’s wireless station to intercept hostile messages from Berlin. In 1914, the French were able to organize a counterattack during the Battle of Marne, after secretly learning that the German Army had stopped its development. Three years later, the station at the top of the Eiffel Tower blocked a coded message between Germany and Spain that provided details about “Operative H-21”. Based in part on this message, the French arrested, convicted and executed the legendary spy Mata Hari for espionage on behalf of Germany.
He always kept up with the style trends
In the modern Paris, even the Eiffel Tower had to keep up with the trends of the time. Over the decades, then, it changed its “appearance”, by simply applying a different color each time. For example, when it first opened in 1889, the Eiffel Tower was known for its reddish-brown color. A decade later, it was painted yellow, and before adopting its current characteristic brown color in 1968, it was also yellow-brown and brown. Every seven years its color is refreshed with 60 tones of color, while it is painted in three shades, progressively lighter to the highest altitude, in order to make its silhouette lighter with a natural background of the canvas of the Parisian sky.
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