By this time, the city had learned that the tower could be used to help with communications. There was also a metrology lab that had been installed for studies on everything from gravity to electricity. The military used the tower as a wireless telegraph transmitter for communication during battle. The tower was used in the capture of the spy "Mata Hari" during World War I after a message was intercepted. Today, it is used to send radio and television signals to the capital city of Paris and beyond. After people learned about the many benefits the tower provided, no one wanted it to be taken apart.
The Eiffel Tower joined the green energy movement by building two wind turbines on the second level. These wind turbines produce of electricity.
There were 50 architects, engineers, and draftsmen that created 5,300 drawings of the Eiffel Tower before the construction started. Once they had a plan, there were 18,000 pieces built and prepared in Eiffel's factory outside of town. These pieces were created to the accuracy of 1/10 of a millimeter. These pieces were put together to form new pieces that were 5 meters long to be transported to the building site.
There were 132 workers there to assemble the pieces on site. All the pieces were put into place and hooked together by thermally assembled rivets. There were 4 men needed to assemble a single rivet: one person to heat the rivet up, another to hold it in place, a third to shape the head, and a fourth person to beat the rivet with a sledge hammer.
Only of the 2.5 million rivets were assembled on site. The work on the foundations took 5 months. The workers only used spades, and the rubble was taken away by horses and steam locomotives.
There was no problem in building the pillars on the Champ de Mars side of the tower. But on the Seine River side of the tower, foundations used compressed air and corrugated steel caissons five meters under water. The deepest foundations are 15 meters under ground. The feet of the tower are set in each of these foundation ditches. These foundations support the four pillars or truss frames.
The difficulty building the first floor was in bringing building materials and people up to it with a point of departure as in the elevators. The elevators had to be positioned at a slanting angle to meet the horizontal beams on the first floor. The elevator had to use hydraulic jacks to move and erect the elevator up the slanted legs. Currently the hydraulic jacks are not in use due to more advanced technology. The second floor was assembled with cranes that took the same route as the elevators. There was no troubles from this point onward in the construction.
Musée du Louvre
The Louvre is a museum in Paris that has millions of visitors every year because of its art collection. It is the most popular art museum in the world.
The most famous arts in the Louvre is the "Mona Lisa" by Leonardo da Vinci. Other paintings include works of Rembrandt, Giambattista Pittoni, Caravaggio, Rubens, Titian and Eugène Delacroix.
There are also statues inside the Louvre. The most famous statues are the Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory of Samothrace.
Philip II of France built a castle called the "Castle of the Louvre". It used to be where the museum is. They used the castle as a fortress to defend Paris against the Vikings.
Charles V, King of France turned the castle into a palace. However, Francis I, King of France, knocked it down and built a new palace.
Henry IV, King of France added the Grande Galerie to the Louvre. The Grande Galerie is more than a quarter of a mile long and one hundred feet wide. The Grande Galerie was built along the River Seine. It was the longest building in the world.
Venus de Milo
The Venus de Milo is an ancient Greek statue. It is in the Louvre, a museum in Paris, France. The "Venus de Milo" represents Aphrodite, the goddess of love in Greek mythology. The statue is made of marble and is 203cm high. It is believed to be the work of Alexandros of Antioch. The "Venus de Milo" was found on 8 April 1820 on the Aegean island of Melos. King Louis XVIII of France presented the "Venus de Milo" to the Louvre in 1821.
Aphrodite
Aphrodite (Ancient Greek: Ἀφροδίτη, "Aphrodítē") is the Ancient Greek goddess of love, beauty. She was also the goddess of procreation. Aphrodite is one of the Twelve Olympians. The most beautiful and refined of the goddesses, Aphrodite was married to Hephaestus, god of fire and metalworking. Aphrodite had numerous affairs with other beings, the most notable of these being Ares, the god of war.
In Homer's "Iliad", one of the Oceanids.
In Hesiod's "Theogony", however, Aphrodite is stated to have risen from sea foam, formed at the spot where Uranos' genitals landed, after Kronos castrated him and tossed them into the sea. Aphrodite's cult was centered on the islands of Cythera and Cyprus, both of which were claimed to be her birthplace. Her main festival was the Aphrodisia, which was celebrated annually every midsummer. The Charites (minor goddesses of grace and splendor) attended to Aphrodite and served as her handmaidens. Aphrodite's symbols include the dolphin, myrtle, rose, dove, sparrow, swan and pearl, and the dove, sparrow and swan were her sacred animals. The goddess Venus is her Roman equivalent. Aphrodite was quite often described as very beautiful, and was used as a point of comparison for female beauty - but just as she was beautiful, she just as smart and wise.
Eros, Phobos, Deimos, Harmonia, Pothos, Anteros, Himeros, Hermaphroditos, Rhode, Eryx, Peitho, Tyche, Eunomia, The Graces, Priapus, and Aeneas. She has 16 children in total.
Aphrodite was very beautiful, which made Zeus afraid that she would be the cause of fights between the other gods. He therefore gave Aphrodite to Hephaestus. Hephaestus was happy to be married to Aphrodite and gave her many pieces of jewelry which were gifts of love, like a belt that when ever she wore it, it would make men be attracted to her. Aphrodite, however, was not attracted to him. So she spent most of her time with Ares, but she also spent time with Adonis and Anchises. She had many children.
Venus (mythology)
In Roman mythology, Venus is the goddess of love and beauty. She was the Roman version of the Greek Aphrodite and Etruscan Turan.
Her cult began in Ardea and Lavinium, Latium. On August 18, 293 BC, the first temple to her was built . August 18 was then a festival called the Vinalia Rustica. On April 1, the Veneralia was celebrated in honor of Venus Verticordia, the protector against vice. On April 23, 215 BC, a temple was built on the Capitol dedicated to Venus Erycina to commemorate the Roman defeat at Lake Trasum.
Venus was also married to Vulcan, who was the god of fire, volcanoes and blacksmiths. Julius Caesar claimed Venus Genetrix as his own personal, divine ancestress.
Jupiter (mythology)
Jupiter (Latin: "Iuppiter") is the king of the gods in Roman mythology. He was the god of the sky and thunder. He is known as Zeus in Greek mythology. His brother's name was Pluto and his sister was Ceres.
Saturn, who was the previous king of the gods, began to swallow the children that he had with his wife,(Greek equivalent Rhea), when they were born. This was because he had been warned that one of his children would overthrow him. Saturn swallowed the children Neptune, Pluto, Ceres, Juno and Vesta. When Ops realised that she was pregnant with Jupiter, she had the baby secretly and moved to Crete, giving a stone wrapped in baby clothes to Saturn for him to eat. Saturn believed he had eaten Jupiter but Jupiter was saved.
After Jupiter was raised by his mother, his destiny was to take over his own father, Saturn, as revenge for all he had done to his brothers and sisters in the past. When Jupiter grew up, he made Saturn vomit up all of the children he had swallowed. All the brothers and sisters joined forces and overthrew Saturn.