DO you know ? |


DO you know ?

    11th January, 2017 12:03:36 printer

DO you know ?

•    The Eiffel Tower was designed by the French engineer and bridge builder Alexandre Gustave Eiffel to celebrate the 100th year anniversary of the French Revolution. It took two years, two months and five days to complete the construction work.

•    The Eiffel Tower has 20,000 light-bulbs, 5,000 per side, that sparkle for five minutes on the hour, every hour, from nightfall to 1 AM. What might surprise some is that it is illegal to take a photograph of the tower at night because the light display is considered artwork and therefore protected under copyright law.  Snap off a picture and you can be fined.

•    The French military used the Eiffel Tower’s wireless station to intercept enemy messages from Berlin during World War I. In 1917, the radio station above the tower intercepted a coded message between Germany and Spain that included information about ‘Operative H-21’, otherwise known as the Dutch-born exotic dancer Margaretha Geertruida Zelle  MacLeod, whose stage name was Mata Hari who was spying for the Germans. Based on this message, the French were able to arrest, convict and execute Mata Hari for espionage.

•    There have only been 349 successful suicides since the tower first opened in 1889, according to the Societe de la Tour Eiffel. Some were jumpers, while others were people hanging themselves from the beam, and those who did attempt to jump from the first level didn’t always die.