Tag: Eiffel Tower

MARCH 31, 1889:What Hath Iron Wrought

Posted on by rdaybell

On March 31, 1889, the structure that would forever change the Paris skyline opened to the public.  The French were understandably proud of the Tour Eiffel, “La dame de fer” (“Iron Lady”).  They enthused:

“We, writers, painters, sculptors, architects and passionate devotees of the hitherto untouched beauty of Paris, protest with all our strength, with all our indignation in the name of slighted French taste, against the erection … of this useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower … To bring our arguments home, imagine for a moment a giddy, ridiculous tower dominating Paris like a gigantic black smokestack, crushing under its barbaric bulk Notre Dame, the Tour Saint-Jacques, the Louvre, the Dome of les Invalides, the Arc de Triomphe, all of our humiliated monuments will disappear in this ghastly dream. And for twenty years … we shall see stretching like a blot of ink the hateful shadow of the hateful column of bolted sheet metal.”

Well, maybe not everyone.

The Tower was the centerpiece of the 1889 World’s Fair, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution.  At a height of 1,083 feet, it surpassed the Washington Monument as the tallest freestanding structure in the world.  Continuing the game of one-upmanship, Americans struck back with the Chrysler Building in 1930.  In 1957, the French regained the title by adding an aerial to the top of the tower.

The tower has three levels open to the public.  The top level, 906 feet above the ground, has an observation deck and a private pied à terre built for Gustave Eiffel.  Some six million people make the climb every year.  As far as we know, none have ever been invited into the pied à terre.

Fooling Around with Father Time

We’ve been enjoying the benefits of daylight saving time for a couple of weeks now – something most of us have always known. But it wasn’t always so. We saved no daylight before March 31 in 1918, when daylight saving time went into effect in the United States for the first time. It was abandoned after World War I and had an off an on again existence for the next half-century.

Strangely enough, the concept was fairly controversial. In a government hearing on daylight saving time back in the late 40s, Senators brought up several unusual points.

The Senator from Louisiana wondered what effect the change would have on his milk supply since “the flow of milk is not governed by any act of Congress.” The Senator from Rhode Island answered: “I am not an authority on milk – I use it once in a while – but I am sure there will not be any trouble with the delivery of milk to the Senator’s door merely because of the variation of one hour in time.”

But the Senator from Louisiana was just getting started: “Daylight savings time or no daylight savings time, the birds are going to their nests according to standard time, and the squirrels will go to their rest in the same way; and the cows will want to go to the barns and get their food at that time, and they are entitled to do so. But the Senate bids the sun and the moon to stand still – why? To accommodate some of these ambitious people who like to get to work early and like to get away from work early and get out in the sun and play golf, and, after a few rounds of golf, retire for proper refreshments.

“Even love would be affected. A boy calls a young lady up and . . . they make a date for the evening and fix an hour. She has standard time and he has daylight savings time and they do not get together at all. It merely makes for confusion all around.”

Nevertheless, fifty-six senators voted for the daylight saving time bill. Calculations indicate that since that time we’ve saved 8,402 hours of daylight per person.

 

 

February 4, 1912: It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s the Flying Tailor

Posted on by Richard Daybell

Born in Austria, Franz Reichelt moved to Paris in 1898 at the age of 19. There he went into business as a tailor, creating fashionable dresses for the many Austrians who visited Paris. He was quite successful at his chosen trade, but he yearned for something more. He had the mind of an inventor, and we all know what troubles that can get a person into.

As with many such dreamers in the early 20th century, he looked to the skies, which were now filled with magnificent men in their flying machines. Reichelt became obsessed with the idea of a tailor-made suit that would convert to a parachute should a hapless aviator leave his or her flying machine for some reason. Parachutes had been around for ages, but his would be sartorial as well as utilitarian.

He developed his garment and tested it on dummies dropped from his fifth floor apartment. (“Mon Dieu, here comes another falling dummy,” a Parisian pedestrian might be heard to remark.) These experiments were less than successful. What he needed was a higher perch from which to launch his dummies. A lesser man might have moved to a tenth floor apartment, but Reichelt saw the Eiffel Tower gleaming in the distance, a steel siren calling to him.

Reichelt somehow wheedled the Parisian Prefecture of Police to grant him permission to conduct a test from the tower. However, when he arrived at the tower on February 4, 1912, he was not accompanied by a dummy. It quickly became clear that he had duped them, that Reichelt himself would be the dummy. Despite all attempts to dissuade him, Reichelt, about to become known as the flying tailor, jumped from the tower platform, down to the icy ground below and into the history books. Charles Darwin strikes again.

Other Than the Previous One, That Is

In 1789, George Washington was elected president receiving 100% of the vote, the only president to ever do so.

Unfriended

On this day in 2004, Mark Zuckerberg and fellow Harvard students launched Facebook.  It was limited to Harvard students only.  Alas, it did not remain that way.

AUGUST 17, 1978: GIVE ‘EM HELIUM

Posted on by Richard Daybell

Three Americans from New Mexico completed the first transatlantic balloon flight, landing in a barley field 60 miles from Paris, 138 hours and six minutes after lifting off from Presque Isle, Maine. The helium-filled Double Eagle II covered 3,233 miles in its six-day journey.

Almanac devotees will remember (having most certainly taken notes) that Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard crossed the English Channel to great fanfare some two hundred years earlier.

Balloonists began attempting the Atlantic crossing in the mid-1800s, with 17 unsuccessful flights, resulting in the deaths of at least seven balloonists. Two of our three balloonists gave it their first shot in September 1977, aboard the Double Eagle I, but were blown off course, landing off Iceland after 66 hours.  After recovering from bruises, embarrassment and frostbite, they were ready to foolishly rush in again.  A third pilot was brought in to spread the pain.

The Eagle Junior was a big balloon – 11-stories of helium.  It made good progress after blastoff, but during mid-trip, plunged from 20,000 feet to a hair-raising 4,000 feet, forcing them to jettison ballast material and many of their inflight amenities.  Among the items chucked overboard was evidently all of their finer cuisine, for they were forced to finish the trip dining only on hot dogs and sardines. Toward the end of the trip, one balloonist was heard to remark somewhat testily: “Skip the bun; just grease up my hot dog with mustard real good and I’ll shove it in my ear.”

Panic set in when the balloonists couldn’t find the Eiffel Tower.  Blown off course, they touched down just before dusk on August 17, 1978, near the hamlet of Miserey, missing the wine and ticker-tape parade in Paris. Parisians, not wanting to give up a celebratory occasion, amused themselves in honor of the storming of the Bastille.