Following Napoleon's embarrassing defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, the revolt of the Commune, and the resulting turmoil from these events, France desperately needed to display its renewed greatness on an international scale. The political…

Centuries after its initial construction as an industrial attraction for the 1889 World’s Fair (also known as the Exposition Universelles), the Eiffel tower has now become the premier symbol of Paris. In its early years, however, the massive and…