On December 15, 1832, a baby named Alexandre Gustave Bonickhausen dit Eiffel was born in the wine-making city of Dijon, France. His family had nicknamed themselves Eiffel after the Eifel Mountains in Germany. Young Gustave loved tinkering in his uncle's vinegar factory, where pipes, valves, and tanks taught him how things fit together. He grew up to study at a famous engineering school in Paris and discovered he loved iron - strong, light, bendable iron that could do amazing things.
Gustave began building bridges that arched across rivers in places like Portugal and Vietnam. He designed the iron skeleton inside the Statue of Liberty, the invisible bones that hold up Lady Liberty's copper skin so she does not blow over in New York Harbor's strong winds. But his most famous project came in 1887, when Paris was preparing for a giant World's Fair to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. Gustave's company won a contest to build a huge iron tower as the entrance arch.
For two years, two months, and five days, 300 workers riveted together 18,038 pieces of iron weighing 10,100 tons. When the Eiffel Tower opened in 1889, it stood 1,083 feet tall, making it the tallest structure on Earth. Many Parisians hated it at first and called it ugly. But Gustave laughed and added weather instruments and a radio antenna to the top, which proved so useful the city kept it forever. Today, nearly 7 million visitors a year climb up Gustave Eiffel's iron lacework - the most visited monument on the planet.
