The Eiffel Tower is in St. Germain in Paris, France, on a bank of the River Seine.

M. Eiffel, who was the main engineer of the design and building of the Tower¹, also helped design the framework for the Statue of Liberty and various other buildings. He became known as the 'Magician of Iron'.

The Eiffel Tower was built as the entrance arch to the Paris Exhibition in 1889, celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the French Revolution. It was opened to the general public on the 15^th March 1889, before it was even finished. It was finished on the 5^th May 1889. It was meant to be a temporary structure, to stand for only 20 years. However, it was never taken down, so it still stands today.

While it was being built, there were endless efforts by many different groups of people to get the whole project scrapped. One group of Parisian artists called it "the shame of Paris", complaining about the aesthetics of the Tower, that it was the French equivalant of an eyesore. After it had been built, there were still demands that it be taken down.

The Eiffel Tower is a very large iron structure. There are about 2.5 million rivets in the whole thing. It weighs over 9000 tonnes. If you were to stand the leaning Tower of Pisa on the Statue of Liberty, on the Great Pyramid of the Pharoah Cheops, the Eiffel Tower would be taller. If you were to magnetise it, it would affect electronic circuits for miles around if you magnetised it well. Unfortunately for all budding trouble-makers, this has been made incredibly difficult by very thick coats of paint. About 45 tonnes of mud-brown paint is applied every seven years. This has kept the structure from rusting.

The base of the Eiffel Tower is 100 metres square, and is 320 metres tall, owing to a Radio tower and antenna placed at the top in 1959. Before the radio tower and antenna, it was 300 metres tall; at one point it was the highest structure in the world. During a hot day the iron expands so much that the Tower can rise by up to 17 centimetres. Also, owing to its skeletal structure, it moves only as much as an estimated 22cms in hurricane-force winds. This is NOT much at all.

Because it is so high, it has been a very popular place to commit suicide; over 400 people have thrown themselves off it since it was built. To get up to the height you want there are lifts from the ground (one in each of the four 'legs') to the first level (57 metres above ground) and to the second level (115 metres above ground). The second level is where all the legs are brought together. Then there is a lift to the third level (276 metres above ground). Ordinary visitors cannot go higher than this, but there is the Observation Deck, lamp and Radio tower and antenna.
Although no one was killed during the construction of the Tower, after it had been opened one worker was killed while the lifts were being installed.

When the Germans took over Paris during World War 2, there was a mystery fault in the lifts, so when Herr Hitler wanted to go up it, he had to climb the 1792 steps to the top. When the Germans left Paris (in 1944), the lifts were fixed with the simple turn of a screw.

On the ground, many salespeople wander with Eiffel Tower models of it of varying sizes and other miscellaneous objects, trying to persuade the many tourists to buy from them.