Free Republic

1. Completed on March 31, 1889, the tower was the world’s tallest man-made structure for 41 years until the completion of the Chrysler Building in New York in 1930. 2. It is 324 metres tall (including antennas) and weighs 10,100 tonnes. 3. It was the tallest structure in France until the construction of a military transmitter in the town of Saissac in 1973. The Millau Viaduct, completed in 2004, is also taller, at 343 metres. 4. It is possible to climb to the top, but there are 1,665 steps. Most people take the lift. 5. The lifts travel a combined...

A World War II fighter pilot who gained fame for dramatically flying beneath the Eiffel Tower's arches to take down a German aircraft has died aged 92. William Overstreet Jr. died on Sunday at a hospital in Roanoke, Virginia, according to his obituary, but there was no indication of the cause of his death. Overstreet's famously flew his P-51C 'Berlin Express' beneath the Eiffel Tower in Nazi-occupied Paris in 1944, which has been credited with lifting the spirits of French Resistance troops on the ground. For his valiant service, the French ambassador to the United States presented Overstreet with France's...

Roanoke lost one of its most decorated World War II veterans last weekend. Former fighter pilot William Overstreet Jr., famous for flying beneath the arches of the Eiffel Tower while chasing a German aircraft during the war, died Sunday afternoon. He was 92. Overstreet was awarded hundreds of medals for his service in the 357th squadron of the U.S. Army Air Forces, according to his obituary for Oakey’s Funeral Home. One of his greatest honors was receiving France’s Legion of Honor by the French ambassador to the U.S. in 2009 at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford. At the ceremony,...

Kim Jong Un building 'mini world' with replica Big Ben and Eiffel Tower Chubby tyrant Kim Jong Un is building a “miniature world” in North Korea – with a replica of London's Big Ben at its heart. The dictator is set to open the theme park in capital Pyongyang – and has included the iconic clock tower. The new attraction, which opens this year, will also boast a copy of Paris’ Eiffel Tower. The secretive state famously doesn’t allow its citizens to leave the country – so it appears Jong Un has decided to bring the world to his people....

The Eiffel Tower was evacuated tonight following a telephoned terrorist bomb warning. Some 1,500 people, including tourists and staff, were escorted out of France's most famous landmark shortly after 7.30pm. It follows threats from Al-Qaeda pledging 'revenge' for the French intervention in the African state of Mali to fight Islamic terrorists. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2301676/BREAKING-NEWS-1-500-people-evacuated-Eiffel-Tower-anonymous-phone-claimed-explosives-placed-landmark.html#ixzz2P5IbOcgI

Explanation: Did you see that full Moon Saturday night? Dubbed a supermoon, the latest fully illuminated moon appeared slightly larger than usual because it occurred unusually near the closest point in its orbit to Earth. Pictured above, the supermoon was captured Saturday night rising behind the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France. Of course, the angular extent of the moon in comparison to foreground objects can be adjusted just by changing the observer's distance to the foreground object. When compared to nearby objects the moon may appear tiny, but when compared to distant objects -- the moon may...

Paris landmarks on terrorists’ list October 04, 2010 THE EIFFEL Tower and Notre-Dame Cathedral are among the top potential terrorist targets in Europe, according to the newspaper Le Monde. The paper, citing the American channel Fox News, said two “high-up officials in the western intelligence services” have confirmed that the tower and cathedral figure on a list passed on by a Pakistani interrogated at a military base in Afghanistan. They are said to be among sites selected because they attract a lot of people, along with, for example, the central station in Berlin. Security for the British royal family has...

PARIS — French police have struck a blow to a black-market trade that has long flourished in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower: informal peddling of mini tower replicas. Police detained 39 people in breaking up a Chinese-run ring of illegal Senegalese immigrants accused of selling unauthorized Eiffel Tower souvenirs, a spokeswoman for the Paris police headquarters said Thursday. Several vendors were arrested at or near the tower itself in the raids this week, while their Chinese employers were detained in offices and a building used for storing the merchandise, the spokeswoman said. She was not authorized to be publicly...

The Eiffel Tower, which has become a global icon of France, was lit up with colors of Turkish flag under the ongoing “Season of Turkey” activities in France. The tower will be wearing Turkey’s colors (red and white) from 8:00 p.m. to dawn for five days The Paris Municipality, earlier, decided to make a gesture to President Abdullah Gul during his visit to Paris by lighting up the tower with colors of Turkish flag from October 6 to October 11. Turkish President Gul visited France on October 7 to attend opening of the exhibition “Istanbul through the Ages” at Grand...

Teenager jumps to her death from Eiffel Tower, crashing onto roof of packed restaurant 180ft below IAN SPARKS 27th June 2009 A teenage tourist has leapt to her death from the Eiffel Tower in Paris and crashed onto the roof of a packed restaurant 180ft below. The 18-year-old Brazilian girl jumped from a second-storey tier as her brother frantically tried to stop her. Diners on the tower's 170ft-high first floor then heard her smash into the plastic roof of the restaurant, believed to be Altitude 95, five feet above their heads. Altitude 95, on the first tier of the Eiffel...

French Workers Shut Down Eiffel Tower: A Preview Of Socialism by Rachel Marsden 04/10/2009 A Rasmussen poll here in America has just found that only 53% Americans prefer capitalism to socialism. Care to see what the alternative looks like? “Strike closes Eiffel Tower; worker’s demands not known,” read the headline of a Canadian Press story this week. Apparently 500 people who work in the city’s largest tourist attraction all just walked off the job. No one even needs an excuse not to work in France anymore. Coming up with things like “demands” takes work and effort. And why bother going...

Crazy american drives the french nuts by snowboarding in the streets of Paris. Very funny...

A towering 71-storey skyscraper to rival the Eiffel Tower is to be built on the edge of Paris. The Signal Tower is expected to be completed in 2015 and will be 987.5 feet tall and stand in the La Defense business district. The rectangular tower will be divided into four levels to house shops, a luxury hotel, offices and apartments on the top - crowned with green from the atrium. The building, designed by award-winning French architect Jean Nouvel, will be 75 feet shorter than the Eiffel Tower, making it the second-tallest building in the Paris metropolitan area. It is...

A plot by Islamic terrorists to blow up the Eiffel Tower has been uncovered. A scrambled short-wave radio conversation exposing the planned attack on the world's most visited monument was picked up by Portuguese air traffic controllers and passed on to French spy chiefs. The 1,060ft high tower has more than six million visitors a year - an average of more than 16,000 a day. A successful strike on the 7,500 ton iron tower, which was looked down on Paris since 1889, would be a French 9/11 and could cost thousands of lives. The threat was uncovered in a "vague...

See for example this thread first. It's "Lights out" on the Eiffel Tower What happened? Did Paris lose power? This action's intent? The environment...! (You can say it's not their brightest hour.)

THE Eiffel Tower's lights will be turned off for five minutes on Friday as part of a campaign to save energy and draw attention to the plight of the planet. The agency that manages the Paris landmark said today that it will be joining a campaign to draw attention to "sustainable development and the preservation of the planet" with the five-minute blackout at 5.55am AEDT. The campaign called Five Minutes of Respite for the Planet is being held as world experts meet in Paris to thrash out a report on global warming. The Eiffel Tower has recently changed its lighting...

PARIS: A French court has sentenced 25 Muslims for planning attacks on the Eiffel Tower and other targets with explosives in support of rebels fighting Russian forces in Chechnya. The five main defendants, of Moroccan and Algerian origin, received prison terms of eight to 10 years, while the others received lesser terms for criminal association. Two were acquitted in a trial that prosecutors said had demonstrated the "globalisation of the jihad movement". Prosecutors at the six-week trial in Paris, which ended last month, said the group was planning to hit the Eiffel Tower, Paris's Les Halles underground shopping centre, police...

U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Richard M. Mason II, an assaultman for 2nd Platoon, K Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, sights down range with his rocket launcher. Nicknamed the "Rocket Man," he has effectively fired 24 rockets using the Shoulder-Launched Multi-Purpose Assault Weapon or SMAW during combat ops in Ramadi. (U.S.M.C. photo by Cpl. Joseph DiGirolamo) An assault team from B Company, 1st Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 5, prepare to enter a possible suicide vehicle bomb workshop in Fallujah, Iraq. The Marines are searching the vacant garage after receiving intelligence that the owner might be supporting...

Paris - Authorities evacuated the Eiffel Tower on Sunday following an anonymous bomb threat, police said. After a Paris police station received a threatening telephone call on Sunday, authorities asked visitors and workers to leave the monument, police said. A squad of explosives experts headed to the scene - standard procedure after such threats. Police turned up nothing suspicious during a search, and people were authorised to return to the monument after about an hour. The 324m tower is one of France's top tourist attractions, with more than 6 million visitors in 2004.

(AP) A Norwegian man was killed after jumping from the Eiffel Tower when a parachute he was wearing got stuck on an upper deck of the monument, officials said Tuesday. Preliminary investigations indicated that the man planned to film his jump as part of publicity for a Norwegian clothing brand, police said. The man, 31, entered the tower with a hidden parachute and a helmet that had a small video camera attached to it, said the official at Paris' police headquarters, speaking on customary condition of anonymity. Upon reaching the tower's 380-foot second deck, the man jumped. Investigators believe his...