Eiffel's Tower: The Thrilling Story Behind Paris's Beloved Monument and the Extraordinary World's Fair That Introduced It Free Audiobook Download by Jill Jonnes

The French Industrial Exposition of 1887 was the first World's Fair to be held in Paris, and it made a lasting impression on visitors and locals alike. The exposition had been a long time coming. For years, the army of visiting fair guests had come to scoff at the city's faded grandeur, but then an incredible thing happened: they came back to see it rebuilt. The story that this book tells is often shocking, funny, poignant and heartwarming.

The Eiffel Tower was first presented to the world at the Paris World's Fair in 1889. The iconic structure, which is literally in the heart of Paris, has maintained its status as a symbol of France and Europe for over 130 years.

In 1889, when the French Exhibition was over, the finished Eiffel Tower was left to stand by itself in a desolate field of mud, nearly 600 feet from the Champ de Mars. The tower was ridiculed as ugly and dangerous—an accident waiting to happen. It brought "crowds of visitors who passed their time in staring at it or speculating about its construction." Early sketches for the monument had been rejected by the French government because they were deemed too out of scale with Paris's architecture. It wasn't until its first public exhibition, at the World's Fair of 1900 that it gained widespread appreciation.

In 1887, fifty-year-old Gustave Eiffel, a retired engineer who had worked on the Paris sewers, proposed to build a tower as an entrance to the World's Fair of 1889. The success of his design for the tower led to many more structures being built around the globe.

Paris's Eiffel Tower was an innovative wonder of the world when it was unveiled at the 1878 Paris World's Fair. Although its creator, Gustave Eiffel, had designed it for trade shows and construction sites rather than as a tower that would grace the city of Paris, Gustave was confident enough in his design to build and launch the tower before construction even began.