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19/02/09
I was really clutching at straws today, for the first time in...6 months (struth!) I didn't take my camera with me. I think I know how a woman feels without a handbag now! Anyway, I was browsing the 365 community forum and I came across eeicenbice's apple photo. I innocently commented the first thing that came to mind and continued browsing. Next I tripped over Patchworkbunny and her Heptagon/Septagon shot, where she just happened to mention The Rouge Players theme of the day Hypothetcal corpses.... et viola
You see apples contain cyanide...its true. I'm one of those people who eat the whole apple (stalk and all if I don’t have a dustbin) so death by apple is hypothetically bound to happen to me one day.. Ok the amount of cyanide is so small it wouldn’t even harm a mouse... but it's still cyanide, and it happend to Snow White :P
Cheers to EB and PB for subconsciously contributing to this shot, their photostreams can be a gerat source of inspiration :D
Lightroom: White balance by eye, crop to centralise the apple, increase exposure by 1 stop (oops!) use the brush tool to slightly desaturate my fingers, very slight vignette (although most of it comes from the lens), USM sharpen, save to JPG
Me some time ago at Möllan (Moulin) outside a friends door close to glassfabriken
peace and noise!
/ MushroomBrain
The wife of our modern Caesar is above reproach. It's official.
It turns out that calling the so-called First Lady a whore is a risky proposition. On one side, it's an invitaiton to a lawsuit. On the other side, some call it mysogynistic slut-shaming. Regardless, it's off limits.
What's left? Plenty.
Lyin' Donnie's current Slavic arm candy is alleged to have padded her resume with non-existent academic credentials.
www.snopes.com/melania-trump-architecture-degree/
She's also been accused of plagarism in her speech to the Republican National Convention, though in keeping with imperial tradition, this offense was denied and blamed on a servant.
www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/melania-trump-speech-plagiar...
Oh, and there's the shameless opportunism that shines through her grievances against the publications that have allegedly harmed her by calling her a former escort.
She claims that alleged slander killed any chances she ever had as The Most Famous Woman in the Whole Wide World to rake in big bucks from her celebrity. Not that she would ever do that.
www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/us/politics/melania-trump-libe...
The origin (or early spreader) of the "'Captain Pugwash' had characters called Master Bates, Seaman Stains and Roger the Cabin Boy" myth. Victor Lewis-Smith and Paul Sparks in the 'Sunday Correspondent' in 1990.
More on Snopes.
Why should we hear about body bags, and deaths... I mean, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that? ~ Barbara Bush
Inspired by an amazing set of photos by Dennis J2007.
Al Asad, Iraq sandstorm, April 2005. Cpl. Alicia M. Garcia, US Marine Corps, took a series of photos of the approaching sandstorm & I think didn't realize that she had taken a panorama photo. Individual photos of this sandstorm event can be seen on various internet sites (e.g., www.snopes.com/photos/natural/sandstorm.asp). I stitched three of the photos to create the panorama above.
Yeh, nothing says tender and flaky like a heart full of good old lard !
Where are those people now ? They'd be good candidates for that show 'Honey we're killing the kids'
Jan.4,2012: Okay my fine folks, it appears this ad is a hoax O.O !! Here's the link a kind person posted in the comments ( I'll still leave the pic. up for a laugh ):
msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;...
Photos are not from tsunami, rather they are from an event called a "tidal bore" which took place in Hangzhou, China in 2002. Note the Chinese architecture and people. www.snopes.com/photos/tsunami/tsunami1.asp
I have no idea who this is or where the source image came from. If you happen to find out, please let me know.
...
Background
Photos are not from tsunami, rather they are from an event called a "tidal bore" which took place in Hangzhou, China in 2002. Note the Chinese architecture and people. www.snopes.com/photos/tsunami/tsunami1.asp
Blessed be the memory of the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Gazing back through the rosy haze of history, we recall the Dodgers as the cherished sons of Brooklyn, a noble band of knights-errant who brought honor to the land by playing baseball the way it was meant to be played, simply for the love of the game. Representing a borough of immigrants, they integrated earlier than any other team, their fans united in adoration of stars both black and white: Jackie and Pee Wee, Campy and Gil, Newk and the Duke. When "Dem Bums" finally vanquished the hated New York Yankees and brought a championship to Brooklyn in 1955, after having fallen short against their villainous crosstown rivals in each of their past five World Series appearances, it seemed to validate the belief, later phrased so eloquently by Martin Luther King Jr., that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
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Some guys with bats hanging out at Dodger spring training ahead of the team's triumphant 1955 season. From left to right: Duke Snider, Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese, Gil Hodges.
This is the weirdest picture of the Dodgers I could find. They've just set a Major League record with ten straight wins to open the 1955 season, and manager Walter Alston is celebrating by breaking a record over the head of Don Zimmer, who went 4 for 4 with two doubles and a home run in their 14-4 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies. Simultaneously caught mid-blink, from left to right, are Jackie Robinson, Joe Black, and Duke Snider. Gil Hodges is the only one who dares to gaze upon the scene with uncovered eyes.
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And so it was with great horror that Brooklynites watched the Dodgers, the borough's heart and soul, move to Los Angeles after the 1957 season. The greed. The deceit. The betrayal! Animosity for the team's owner, Walter O'Malley, ran rampant, expressed succinctly in this old joke:
If Hitler, Stalin, and O'Malley are in a room and you only have two bullets, who do you shoot?
O'Malley, twice.
It's supposedly an old joke, anyway. You can find it repeated all over the place, but I haven't discovered a reference to it in any source published before 2000. I wonder if "memories" of the joke are just mutations of this story told in 1984's Bums: An Oral History of the Brooklyn Dodgers.
On the larger subject of historical fidelity, who knows if the Dodgers were really as universally revered, as central to Brooklyn's identity, as the old stories make it seem. They certainly had their share of die-hard fans, and attendance at their home games at Ebbets Field exceeded the league average almost every year from 1919 on, but not always to the extent you might expect. During their final five seasons, they finished in first place three times but their home-game attendance was less than eight percent above the league average, and it even dipped below average in 1957. Perhaps decades of romantic reminiscences by a generation of fans whose youths were defined by the Dodgers' presence and then their absence have warped our view of the past, transforming a fairly popular ball club into the stuff of legend.
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A couple of ridiculous-looking, straight-out-of-central-casting fans await the start of game four of the 1949 World Series at Ebbets Field. You can see more photos of handsome Brooklyn fans here.
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But regardless of how grounded in reality it is, the Dodger mythos is now firmly established in the public consciousness. (Meanwhile, nostalgia for the New York Giants, who moved to San Francisco the same year the Dodgers left town, runs nowhere near as high. The Giants were the better team over the decades, with five World Series titles to the Dodgers' one, although they were less successful in the years leading up to their move. They did win the World Series in 1954, however, and they had a young man who would become one of the greatest players of all time, if not the greatest, Willie Mays, roaming center field. But their fan base, judging by their home-game attendance at the Polo Grounds, didn't quite match the Dodgers'; it probably didn't help that the eternally dominant Yankees played right across the Harlem River, one subway stop away. And being located in Manhattan, with all its iconic attractions, meant the Giants could never be as synonymous with their home borough as the Dodgers could.)
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Back in the early years of Ebbets Field, fans could watch games for free if they climbed high enough up in the trees that stood beyond the outfield walls. Youngsters were also known for lying on the sidewalk outside the stadium and peering beneath a big double door in right-center field to get a glimpse of the action.
Tree-climbing Giants fans would pull the same move up on Coogan's Bluff above the Polo Grounds. Their view wasn't as good, with the infield obscured, but they did get their exploits memorialized on a Life magazine cover.
--------------------------------------------
It was O'Malley's desire for a new ballpark to replace the aging Ebbets Field that drove his decision to move the Dodgers to Los Angeles. He originally had a plan to keep the team in Brooklyn, however, by building what would have been the world's first domed stadium, designed by Buckminster Fuller, on a site near the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues. O'Malley wanted the city to use its power of eminent domain to help him acquire the land he needed, forcing unwilling property owners to sell under the premise that the new ballpark would serve the common good. His scheme would have also required heavy public expenditures on infrastructure to support the stadium. Robert Moses and other government officials were less than enthusiastic about the idea. Here's Brooklyn congressman John J. Rooney addressing the matter on the floor of the House of Representatives in 1957:
For years the Brooklyn Baseball Club has coined money for the few stockholders of its closely held stock. The owners never shared any of their profits with the fans. They took advantage of the Dodger fans at every turn . . . I say let them move to Los Angeles if the alternative is to succumb to an arrogant demand to spend the taxpayers' money to build a stadium for them in Brooklyn. I am opposed to uprooting decent citizens living in my congressional district in the vicinity of . . . Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues in order to put more money in the pockets of my dear friend Walter O'Malley and the private profitmaking Brooklyn Baseball Club stockholders. . . . Let Walter O'Malley and his stockholders who have no civic pride for Brooklyn, where they made their money, move to the west coast in quest of more almighty dollars.
Ebbets Field was razed (with a wrecking ball painted to look like a baseball) a couple of years after the Dodgers left, in 1960, but numerous parts of the ballpark managed to escape destruction. After demolition began, fans were invited to come take seats for free. At an on-site auction held after most of the stadium had been torn down, a wide array of items were put up for bid, including "bats, balls, plaques, pennants, player stools, Ebbets Field sod, grand stand seats, bases, the pitcher's rubber, lockers, bricks, ushers' uniforms, pictures, electrical fixtures, bat racks and team schedules". The auction only raised about $2,300 in total, whereas you can now find many Ebbets Field seats selling online for more than that. Even a single brick can go for well over $1,000 these days.
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Fans carrying off some goodies from Ebbets Field. Note the pots of sod in their hands. The Baseball Hall of Fame has one such pot in its collections, although the sod died long ago and now it's just a pot of dried-up dirt.
An illustration of the unique bat-and-ball chandelier that lit up the Ebbets Field rotunda. This appeared in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1913, the year Ebbets Field opened.
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Marvin Kratter, who purchased the stadium in 1956 and then built the Ebbets Field Apartments in its place (and who also built the Bridge Apartments — a.k.a. the Four Sisters, a name I continue to repeat in hopes it will one day catch on — above I-95 in Washington Heights), also gave away lots of stuff to be reused elsewhere. He provided 2,200 seats and some lights to furnish a pair of ball fields for workhouse inmates on Hart Island. The first game at the newly christened Kratter Field pitted the workhouse all-stars against a team of army men from the island's Nike missile battery. According to the NY Times, "the soldiers claimed seven runs in their first time at bat, but the inmate scorer and umpire said it had been only five. . . . The home side also got five runs in its first turn, but by then it was 3:50 P.M. and the game was called because it was time for the regular count of prisoners." (Here are a couple of photos from 1991 showing remnants of the seats at the abandoned fields, which have since been cleared.)
According to an article from 1961, one of the seats sent to Hart Island was subsequently "liberated", shipped across the country "by ferry, limousine and jet plane", and given to Chuck Connors, the star of TV's The Rifleman. Connors had previously enjoyed a glorious career with the Dodgers, grounding into a game-ending double play in his one and only plate appearance with the team, at Ebbets Field in 1949. (He also played 66 games for the Cubs in 1951, as well as 53 games of basketball with the Boston Celtics between 1946 and 1947.) When Ebbets was being torn down, Connors asked his agents to help him locate his favorite seat from the ballpark, K-16, so that he could have it installed at the new Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. It turned out the seat had already been taken to Hart Island, but the warden "agreed to pardon" it for Connors. Prior to the completion of Dodger Stadium in 1962, Connors used K-16 as his chair on the set of The Rifleman. I don't know if he actually succeeded in having the seat installed in the new ballpark. A photo from 1964 shows him with an Ebbets Field seat in his house, which suggests that may have been the final destination of K-16, but it's unclear whether the seat in the photo is K-16 or a different one. It has a plaque on it that reads "Last Chair From Ebbets Field, Presented To Chuck Connors By The City Of Brooklyn", while there was no such plaque on K-16 when it was photographed for the 1961 article.
Kratter sent 500 lights to Randall's Island, where they illuminated Downing Stadium. Many of the individual fixtures were swapped out for new ones over the years; I don't know what happened to the remaining original ones after Downing was torn down in 2002 and replaced by Icahn Stadium.
An outfield flagpole donated by Kratter was put up outside a Veterans of Foreign Wars post in East Flatbush. The VFW hall was later occupied for many years by the Canarsie Casket Company, and the flagpole remained standing until around 2007, when a church that had acquired the property began work to expand the building.
Marty Markowitz, Brooklyn's borough president at the time, heard about the flagpole coming down and alerted his buddy Bruce Ratner, who arranged to purchase it from the church. Ratner was the driving force behind the massive Atlantic Yards development (now called Pacific Park) that is, and will be for many more years, under construction in Prospect Heights. He and Markowitz, the cheerleader-in-chief for Atlantic Yards during his time in office, had the flagpole erected outside Barclays Center, the centerpiece of Atlantic Yards and the first of its buildings to be completed. They dedicated the pole in late 2012, after the arena had premiered as the new home of the NBA's Nets and been announced as the future home (for a few seasons, anyway) of the NHL's Islanders.
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The Ebbets Field flagpole outside Barclays Center.
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(News coverage of the flagpole, as well as the plaque on its base during its East Flatbush days, identified it as the center-field flagpole from Ebbets Field. If you look at old photos of the stadium, you'll see there was in fact a flagpole above center field, one of several located on the roof, but these poles look smaller than the Barclays pole to me. I suspect the Barclays pole is actually the larger flagpole that stood prominently in right-center field beside the scoreboard, capped with a ball finial that appears to match the one atop the Barclays pole.)
So why buy a flagpole from an old baseball stadium and put it outside a basketball arena? Well, Ratner and Markowitz surely understood the lure of the Dodgers — Markowitz was kind of obsessed with the team himself, in fact — and they were never hesitant to remind people that, as mentioned in seemingly every article written about the Nets' move from New Jersey, Atlantic Yards was bringing major professional sports back to Brooklyn for the first time since the Dodgers left, something Markowitz had been talking about doing since his first successful campaign for borough president in 2001.
Markowitz was also on hand at Barclays Center a few months after the flagpole dedication for a presentation of the Dodgers' 1955 championship pennant before a Nets game, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the opening of Ebbets Field. The pennant has a very funny history, having been stolen from the Dodgers in Los Angeles in 1959 by a group of four sportswriters who decided it belonged back in New York. Coincidentally, when the pennant was originally displayed for the fans at Ebbets Field during the 1956 season, it was flown from the scoreboard flagpole, the one that (I believe) now stands outside Barclays Center.
(Of course, the Atlantic Yards crew was just the latest in a long line of profit-seekers trying to co-opt some of the Dodgers' warm fuzzies for their own purposes. When the New York Mets opened their new ballpark, Citi Field — named, like Barclays Center, for a scandal-tarred banking giant — back in 2009, "some of the team's fans complained loudly that the stadium, with its extensive tribute to Jackie Robinson and its architectural nod to Ebbets Field, seemed to be more focused on the Brooklyn Dodgers' history than on the Mets'.")
But beyond the obvious Brooklyn sports connection, there's another, subtler tie between Atlantic Yards and the Dodgers. Barclays Center sits right across Atlantic Avenue from the site that Walter O'Malley wanted for his dome. And like O'Malley's quest for a new stadium, Ratner's push to build Atlantic Yards was inevitably going to be controversial. It wasn't just that the 22-acre megaproject would dramatically reshape the neighborhood; it's that, as with O'Malley's plan, it would require loads of taxpayer funds and the seizure of private property to do so. But this time, with Ratner promising all sorts of affordable housing and new jobs in addition to a sports venue (developers are often better at promising than developing), the government has been on board all the way, forcing out residents and offering more than $700 million in public financing to help make the project a reality.
So if you're Bruce Ratner, and you're trying to show everyone that all the subsidies and tax breaks are beside the point, that you and the Russian oligarch you sold the Nets to are really all about serving the people and bringing joy to the masses, then it certainly couldn't hurt to take an old remnant of Ebbets Field, a physical reminder of the sainted Brooklyn Dodgers, put it up as a public monument with your name on it, and then hold a ceremony for it with Jackie Robinson's daughter in attendance.
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The plaque on the Ebbets Field flagpole.
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And could there possibly be a more appropriate place to pay tribute to a team remembered as the embodiment of all that is good and pure in sports than here at — yes, these are real names — the Resorts World Casino NYC Plaza, opposite the GEICO Main Entrance of Barclays Center?
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Postscript
The aforementioned ridiculously named plaza outside Barclays Center has taken on new life in 2020 as a community hub for protestors in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder. On the evening of June 2, demonstrators raised a Black Lives Matter flag up the Ebbets Field pole. In response, someone on Twitter shared the following words written by Jackie Robinson in his autobiography, made all the more poignant when you consider that Jackie, an Army veteran who was once court-martialed after refusing to move to the back of a bus, must have laid eyes on the American flag hanging from this pole countless times during his baseball career: "I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world."
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Jackie Robinson, in Army uniform, signs a contract to play with the Montreal Royals, a Dodgers farm team, on October 23, 1945. He would spend the 1946 season with the Royals before breaking the major league color barrier with the Dodgers in 1947.
An egg, and its shadow.
Got the idea for this last night as I was making a soufflé for dinner. Wanted to see if I could shoot a white egg against white in a way that it wouldn't just blend in, trying to leverage highlight, shadow, and texture to make that work. I think it worked out pretty well.
Set up some white foam core bottom, rear, and left, and balanced an egg on the bottom piece (yes, this is just balanced: no support, no salt, no glue, no trickery, just balance—and unlike the myth that circulates every so often, today sure ain’t the equinox.) Placed one strobe camera right, roughly level with the egg and firing left, and adjusted it to get the egg well exposed and casting a sharp shadow, which ended up being 1/64 power at 120mm zoom with the flash in center focus mode. Then tried to add some diffuse light with the second flash to make the background generally brighter. Tried a shoot-through umbrella first, but that wasn't diffuse enough, but bouncing off the ceiling in the kitchen worked. So, the second flash ended up right next to the first, but firing straight up, full power, 24mm zoom.
I did some tweaking in post: cropping, reducing vibrance a bit, boosted the definition on the egg itself a bit to emphasise texture, fixed some chromatic aberration, and cloned out the seam between the bottom and rear foam core.
Nikon D7000 w/Nikkor 18-200mm @ 120mm, 1/250s @ ƒ/13, ISO100. One SB-700 camera right firing left, 1/64 power, 120mm zoom center weighted. Second SB-700 camera right firing up for ceiling bounce, full power.
For six word story.
"7 Days of Shooting" "Week #41 - On The Table" "Thoroughly Abstract Thursday"
Taken at The Regency, Laguna Woods, California. © 2014 All Rights Reserved.
My images are not to be used, copied, edited, or blogged without my explicit permission.
Please!! NO Glittery Awards or Large Graphics...Buddy Icons are OK. Thank You!
I found this on the internet regarding the word "joe" ~ Of the two best theories, jamoke morphing into joe is the strongest contender thanks to this find by linguist Michael Quinion: 'It is significant that an early example appears in 1931 in the Reserve Officer's Manual by a man named Erdman: 'Jamoke, Java, Joe. Coffee. Derived from the words Java and Mocha, where originally the best coffee came from.' Read more at www.snopes.com/language/eponyms/cupofjoe.asp#ell2OUEv8RMZ...
Many thanks for every kind comment, fave, your words of encouragement, and the inspiration of your fine photography,
my Flickr friends! You make my day every day!
There's a bit of what seems to be disinformation going around about whether NPP and ToonMe are Kremlin-sourced data harvesters.
Snopes.com has looked into this, and the answer appears to be, no actually. So for now, at any rate, our sites seem to be safe.
www.snopes.com/news/2022/05/11/new-profile-pic-app/
Aside from all that, any preferences with these?
There's a bit of what seems to be disinformation going around about whether NPP and ToonMe are Kremlin-sourced data harvesters.
Snopes.com has looked into this, and the answer appears to be, no actually. So for now, at any rate, our sites seem to be safe.
www.snopes.com/news/2022/05/11/new-profile-pic-app/
Aside from all that, any preferences with these?
Eiffel Tower
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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This article is about the landmark in Paris, France. For other uses, see Eiffel Tower (disambiguation).
"300-metre tower" and "Tour Eiffel" redirect here. For other tall towers, see List of tallest towers. For other uses, see Tour Eiffel (disambiguation).
The Eiffel Tower
La tour Eiffel
Tour Eiffel Wikimedia Commons.jpg
Seen from the Champ de Mars
Wikimedia | © OpenStreetMap
Record height
Tallest in the world from 1889 to 1930[I]
General information
TypeObservation tower
Broadcasting tower
Location7th arrondissement, Paris, France
Coordinates48°51′29.6″N 2°17′40.2″ECoordinates: 48°51′29.6″N 2°17′40.2″E
Construction started28 January 1887; 134 years ago
Completed15 March 1889; 132 years ago
Opening31 March 1889; 132 years ago
OwnerCity of Paris, France
ManagementSociété d'Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (SETE)
Height
Architectural300 m (984 ft)[1]
Tip324 m (1,063 ft)[1]
Top floor276 m (906 ft)[1]
Technical details
Floor count3[2]
Lifts/elevators8[2]
Design and construction
ArchitectStephen Sauvestre
Structural engineerMaurice Koechlin
Émile Nouguier
Main contractorCompagnie des Etablissements Eiffel
Website
toureiffel.paris/en
References
I. ^ Eiffel Tower at Emporis
File:Eiffel Tower Drone 4k-Qx c1X3zfEc-313-251.webm
Eiffel Tower Drone
The Eiffel Tower (/ˈaɪfəl/ EYE-fəl; French: tour Eiffel [tuʁ‿ɛfɛl] (About this soundlisten)) is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower.
Locally nicknamed "La dame de fer" (French for "Iron Lady"), it was constructed from 1887 to 1889 as the entrance to the 1889 World's Fair and was initially criticised by some of France's leading artists and intellectuals for its design, but it has become a global cultural icon of France and one of the most recognisable structures in the world.[3] The Eiffel Tower is the most visited monument with an entrance fee in the world; 6.91 million people ascended it in 2015.
The tower is 324 metres (1,063 ft) tall, about the same height as an 81-storey building, and the tallest structure in Paris. Its base is square, measuring 125 metres (410 ft) on each side. During its construction, the Eiffel Tower surpassed the Washington Monument to become the tallest man-made structure in the world, a title it held for 41 years until the Chrysler Building in New York City was finished in 1930. It was the first structure in the world to surpass both the 200-metre and 300-metre mark in height. Due to the addition of a broadcasting aerial at the top of the tower in 1957, it is now taller than the Chrysler Building by 5.2 metres (17 ft). Excluding transmitters, the Eiffel Tower is the second tallest free-standing structure in France after the Millau Viaduct.
The tower has three levels for visitors, with restaurants on the first and second levels. The top level's upper platform is 276 m (906 ft) above the ground – the highest observation deck accessible to the public in the European Union. Tickets can be purchased to ascend by stairs or lift to the first and second levels. The climb from ground level to the first level is over 300 steps, as is the climb from the first level to the second. Although there is a staircase to the top level, it is usually accessible only by lift.
Contents
1History
1.1Origin
1.2Artists' protest
1.3Construction
1.3.1Lifts
1.4Inauguration and the 1889 exposition
1.5Subsequent events
2Design
2.1Material
2.2Wind considerations
2.3Accommodation
2.4Passenger lifts
2.5Engraved names
2.6Aesthetics
2.7Maintenance
3Tourism
3.1Transport
3.2Popularity
3.3Restaurants
4Replicas
5Communications
5.1FM radio
5.2Digital television
6Illumination copyright
7Height changes
8Taller structures
8.1Lattice towers taller than the Eiffel Tower
8.2Structures in France taller than the Eiffel Tower
9See also
10References
10.1Notes
10.2Bibliography
11External links
History
Origin
The design of the Eiffel Tower is attributed to Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier, two senior engineers working for the Compagnie des Établissements Eiffel. It was envisioned after discussion about a suitable centrepiece for the proposed 1889 Exposition Universelle, a world's fair to celebrate the centennial of the French Revolution. Eiffel openly acknowledged that inspiration for a tower came from the Latting Observatory built in New York City in 1853.[4] In May 1884, working at home, Koechlin made a sketch of their idea, described by him as "a great pylon, consisting of four lattice girders standing apart at the base and coming together at the top, joined together by metal trusses at regular intervals".[5] Eiffel initially showed little enthusiasm, but he did approve further study, and the two engineers then asked Stephen Sauvestre, the head of the company's architectural department, to contribute to the design. Sauvestre added decorative arches to the base of the tower, a glass pavilion to the first level, and other embellishments.
First drawing of the Eiffel Tower by Maurice Koechlin including size comparison with other Parisian landmarks such as Notre Dame de Paris, the Statue of Liberty and the Vendôme Column
The new version gained Eiffel's support: he bought the rights to the patent on the design which Koechlin, Nougier, and Sauvestre had taken out, and the design was put on display at the Exhibition of Decorative Arts in the autumn of 1884 under the company name. On 30 March 1885, Eiffel presented his plans to the Société des Ingénieurs Civils; after discussing the technical problems and emphasising the practical uses of the tower, he finished his talk by saying the tower would symbolise
[n]ot only the art of the modern engineer, but also the century of Industry and Science in which we are living, and for which the way was prepared by the great scientific movement of the eighteenth century and by the Revolution of 1789, to which this monument will be built as an expression of France's gratitude.[6]
Little progress was made until 1886, when Jules Grévy was re-elected as president of France and Édouard Lockroy was appointed as minister for trade. A budget for the exposition was passed and, on 1 May, Lockroy announced an alteration to the terms of the open competition being held for a centrepiece to the exposition, which effectively made the selection of Eiffel's design a foregone conclusion, as entries had to include a study for a 300 m (980 ft) four-sided metal tower on the Champ de Mars.[6] (A 300-metre tower was then considered a herculean engineering effort). On 12 May, a commission was set up to examine Eiffel's scheme and its rivals, which, a month later, decided that all the proposals except Eiffel's were either impractical or lacking in details.
After some debate about the exact location of the tower, a contract was signed on 8 January 1887. Eiffel signed it acting in his own capacity rather than as the representative of his company, the contract granting him 1.5 million francs toward the construction costs: less than a quarter of the estimated 6.5 million francs. Eiffel was to receive all income from the commercial exploitation of the tower during the exhibition and for the next 20 years. He later established a separate company to manage the tower, putting up half the necessary capital himself.[7]
Artists' protest
Caricature of Gustave Eiffel comparing the Eiffel tower to the Pyramids, published in Le Temps, February 14, 1887.
The proposed tower had been a subject of controversy, drawing criticism from those who did not believe it was feasible and those who objected on artistic grounds. Prior to the Eiffel Tower's construction, no structure had ever been constructed to a height of 300 m, or even 200 m for that matter,[8] and many people believed it was impossible. These objections were an expression of a long-standing debate in France about the relationship between architecture and engineering. It came to a head as work began at the Champ de Mars: a "Committee of Three Hundred" (one member for each metre of the tower's height) was formed, led by the prominent architect Charles Garnier and including some of the most important figures of the arts, such as William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Guy de Maupassant, Charles Gounod and Jules Massenet. A petition called "Artists against the Eiffel Tower" was sent to the Minister of Works and Commissioner for the Exposition, Adolphe Alphand, and it was published by Le Temps on 14 February 1887:
We, writers, painters, sculptors, architects and passionate devotees of the hitherto untouched beauty of Paris, protest with all our strength, with all our indignation in the name of slighted French taste, against the erection … of this useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower … To bring our arguments home, imagine for a moment a giddy, ridiculous tower dominating Paris like a gigantic black smokestack, crushing under its barbaric bulk Notre Dame, the Tour Saint-Jacques, the Louvre, the Dome of les Invalides, the Arc de Triomphe, all of our humiliated monuments will disappear in this ghastly dream. And for twenty years … we shall see stretching like a blot of ink the hateful shadow of the hateful column of bolted sheet metal.[9]
A calligram by Guillaume Apollinaire
Gustave Eiffel responded to these criticisms by comparing his tower to the Egyptian pyramids: "My tower will be the tallest edifice ever erected by man. Will it not also be grandiose in its way? And why would something admirable in Egypt become hideous and ridiculous in Paris?"[10] These criticisms were also dealt with by Édouard Lockroy in a letter of support written to Alphand, sardonically saying,[11] "Judging by the stately swell of the rhythms, the beauty of the metaphors, the elegance of its delicate and precise style, one can tell this protest is the result of collaboration of the most famous writers and poets of our time", and he explained that the protest was irrelevant since the project had been decided upon months before, and construction on the tower was already under way.
Indeed, Garnier was a member of the Tower Commission that had examined the various proposals, and had raised no objection. Eiffel was similarly unworried, pointing out to a journalist that it was premature to judge the effect of the tower solely on the basis of the drawings, that the Champ de Mars was distant enough from the monuments mentioned in the protest for there to be little risk of the tower overwhelming them, and putting the aesthetic argument for the tower: "Do not the laws of natural forces always conform to the secret laws of harmony?"[12]
Some of the protesters changed their minds when the tower was built; others remained unconvinced.[13] Guy de Maupassant supposedly ate lunch in the tower's restaurant every day because it was the one place in Paris where the tower was not visible.[14]
By 1918, it had become a symbol of Paris and of France after Guillaume Apollinaire wrote a nationalist poem in the shape of the tower (a calligram) to express his feelings about the war against Germany.[15] Today, it is widely considered to be a remarkable piece of structural art, and is often featured in films and literature.
Construction
Foundations of the Eiffel Tower
Work on the foundations started on 28 January 1887.[16] Those for the east and south legs were straightforward, with each leg resting on four 2 m (6.6 ft) concrete slabs, one for each of the principal girders of each leg. The west and north legs, being closer to the river Seine, were more complicated: each slab needed two piles installed by using compressed-air caissons 15 m (49 ft) long and 6 m (20 ft) in diameter driven to a depth of 22 m (72 ft)[17] to support the concrete slabs, which were 6 m (20 ft) thick. Each of these slabs supported a block of limestone with an inclined top to bear a supporting shoe for the ironwork.
Each shoe was anchored to the stonework by a pair of bolts 10 cm (4 in) in diameter and 7.5 m (25 ft) long. The foundations were completed on 30 June, and the erection of the ironwork began. The visible work on-site was complemented by the enormous amount of exacting preparatory work that took place behind the scenes: the drawing office produced 1,700 general drawings and 3,629 detailed drawings of the 18,038 different parts needed.[18] The task of drawing the components was complicated by the complex angles involved in the design and the degree of precision required: the position of rivet holes was specified to within 1 mm (0.04 in) and angles worked out to one second of arc.[19] The finished components, some already riveted together into sub-assemblies, arrived on horse-drawn carts from a factory in the nearby Parisian suburb of Levallois-Perret and were first bolted together, with the bolts being replaced with rivets as construction progressed. No drilling or shaping was done on site: if any part did not fit, it was sent back to the factory for alteration. In all, 18,038 pieces were joined together using 2.5 million rivets.[16]
At first, the legs were constructed as cantilevers, but about halfway to the first level construction was paused to create a substantial timber scaffold. This renewed concerns about the structural integrity of the tower, and sensational headlines such as "Eiffel Suicide!" and "Gustave Eiffel Has Gone Mad: He Has Been Confined in an Asylum" appeared in the tabloid press.[20] At this stage, a small "creeper" crane designed to move up the tower was installed in each leg. They made use of the guides for the lifts which were to be fitted in the four legs. The critical stage of joining the legs at the first level was completed by the end of March 1888.[16] Although the metalwork had been prepared with the utmost attention to detail, provision had been made to carry out small adjustments to precisely align the legs; hydraulic jacks were fitted to the shoes at the base of each leg, capable of exerting a force of 800 tonnes, and the legs were intentionally constructed at a slightly steeper angle than necessary, being supported by sandboxes on the scaffold. Although construction involved 300 on-site employees,[16] due to Eiffel's safety precautions and the use of movable gangways, guardrails and screens, only one person died.[21]
18 July 1887:
The start of the erection of the metalwork
7 December 1887:
Construction of the legs with scaffolding
20 March 1888:
Completion of the first level
15 May 1888:
Start of construction on the second stage
21 August 1888:
Completion of the second level
26 December 1888:
Construction of the upper stage
15 March 1889:
Construction of the cupola
Lifts
The Roux, Combaluzier & Lepape lifts during construction. Note the drive sprockets and chain in the foreground.
Equipping the tower with adequate and safe passenger lifts was a major concern of the government commission overseeing the Exposition. Although some visitors could be expected to climb to the first level, or even the second, lifts clearly had to be the main means of ascent.[22]
Constructing lifts to reach the first level was relatively straightforward: the legs were wide enough at the bottom and so nearly straight that they could contain a straight track, and a contract was given to the French company Roux, Combaluzier & Lepape for two lifts to be fitted in the east and west legs.[23] Roux, Combaluzier & Lepape used a pair of endless chains with rigid, articulated links to which the car was attached. Lead weights on some links of the upper or return sections of the chains counterbalanced most of the car's weight. The car was pushed up from below, not pulled up from above: to prevent the chain buckling, it was enclosed in a conduit. At the bottom of the run, the chains passed around 3.9 m (12 ft 10 in) diameter sprockets. Smaller sprockets at the top guided the chains.[23]
The Otis lifts originally fitted in the north and south legs
Installing lifts to the second level was more of a challenge because a straight track was impossible. No French company wanted to undertake the work. The European branch of Otis Brothers & Company submitted a proposal but this was rejected: the fair's charter ruled out the use of any foreign material in the construction of the tower. The deadline for bids was extended but still no French companies put themselves forward, and eventually the contract was given to Otis in July 1887.[24] Otis were confident they would eventually be given the contract and had already started creating designs.[citation needed]
The car was divided into two superimposed compartments, each holding 25 passengers, with the lift operator occupying an exterior platform on the first level. Motive power was provided by an inclined hydraulic ram 12.67 m (41 ft 7 in) long and 96.5 cm (38.0 in) in diameter in the tower leg with a stroke of 10.83 m (35 ft 6 in): this moved a carriage carrying six sheaves. Five fixed sheaves were mounted higher up the leg, producing an arrangement similar to a block and tackle but acting in reverse, multiplying the stroke of the piston rather than the force generated. The hydraulic pressure in the driving cylinder was produced by a large open reservoir on the second level. After being exhausted from the cylinder, the water was pumped back up to the reservoir by two pumps in the machinery room at the base of the south leg. This reservoir also provided power to the lifts to the first level.[citation needed]
The original lifts for the journey between the second and third levels were supplied by Léon Edoux. A pair of 81 m (266 ft) hydraulic rams were mounted on the second level, reaching nearly halfway up to the third level. One lift car was mounted on top of these rams: cables ran from the top of this car up to sheaves on the third level and back down to a second car. Each car only travelled half the distance between the second and third levels and passengers were required to change lifts halfway by means of a short gangway. The 10-ton cars each held 65 passengers.[25]
Inauguration and the 1889 exposition
View of the 1889 World's Fair
The main structural work was completed at the end of March 1889 and, on 31 March, Eiffel celebrated by leading a group of government officials, accompanied by representatives of the press, to the top of the tower.[13] Because the lifts were not yet in operation, the ascent was made by foot, and took over an hour, with Eiffel stopping frequently to explain various features. Most of the party chose to stop at the lower levels, but a few, including the structural engineer, Émile Nouguier, the head of construction, Jean Compagnon, the President of the City Council, and reporters from Le Figaro and Le Monde Illustré, completed the ascent. At 2:35 pm, Eiffel hoisted a large Tricolour to the accompaniment of a 25-gun salute fired at the first level.[26]
There was still work to be done, particularly on the lifts and facilities, and the tower was not opened to the public until nine days after the opening of the exposition on 6 May; even then, the lifts had not been completed. The tower was an instant success with the public, and nearly 30,000 visitors made the 1,710-step climb to the top before the lifts entered service on 26 May.[27] Tickets cost 2 francs for the first level, 3 for the second, and 5 for the top, with half-price admission on Sundays,[28] and by the end of the exhibition there had been 1,896,987 visitors.[3]
After dark, the tower was lit by hundreds of gas lamps, and a beacon sent out three beams of red, white and blue light. Two searchlights mounted on a circular rail were used to illuminate various buildings of the exposition. The daily opening and closing of the exposition were announced by a cannon at the top.[citation needed]
Illumination of the tower at night during the exposition
On the second level, the French newspaper Le Figaro had an office and a printing press, where a special souvenir edition, Le Figaro de la Tour, was made. There was also a pâtisserie.[citation needed]
At the top, there was a post office where visitors could send letters and postcards as a memento of their visit. Graffitists were also catered for: sheets of paper were mounted on the walls each day for visitors to record their impressions of the tower. Gustave Eiffel described some of the responses as vraiment curieuse ("truly curious").[29]
Famous visitors to the tower included the Prince of Wales, Sarah Bernhardt, "Buffalo Bill" Cody (his Wild West show was an attraction at the exposition) and Thomas Edison.[27] Eiffel invited Edison to his private apartment at the top of the tower, where Edison presented him with one of his phonographs, a new invention and one of the many highlights of the exposition.[30] Edison signed the guestbook with this message:
To M Eiffel the Engineer the brave builder of so gigantic and original specimen of modern Engineering from one who has the greatest respect and admiration for all Engineers including the Great Engineer the Bon Dieu, Thomas Edison.
Eiffel had a permit for the tower to stand for 20 years. It was to be dismantled in 1909, when its ownership would revert to the City of Paris. The City had planned to tear it down (part of the original contest rules for designing a tower was that it should be easy to dismantle) but as the tower proved to be valuable for radio telegraphy, it was allowed to remain after the expiry of the permit, and from 1910 it also became part of the International Time Service.[31]
Eiffel made use of his apartment at the top of the tower to carry out meteorological observations, and also used the tower to perform experiments on the action of air resistance on falling bodies.[32]
Subsequent events
File:Vue Lumière No 992 - Panorama pendant l'ascension de la Tour Eiffel (1898).ogv
Panoramic view during ascent of the Eiffel Tower by the Lumière brothers, 1898
File:Reichelt.ogv
Franz Reichelt's preparations and fatal jump from the Eiffel Tower
For the 1900 Exposition Universelle, the lifts in the east and west legs were replaced by lifts running as far as the second level constructed by the French firm Fives-Lille. These had a compensating mechanism to keep the floor level as the angle of ascent changed at the first level, and were driven by a similar hydraulic mechanism to the Otis lifts, although this was situated at the base of the tower. Hydraulic pressure was provided by pressurised accumulators located near this mechanism.[24] At the same time the lift in the north pillar was removed and replaced by a staircase to the first level. The layout of both first and second levels was modified, with the space available for visitors on the second level. The original lift in the south pillar was removed 13 years later.[citation needed]
On 19 October 1901, Alberto Santos-Dumont, flying his No.6 airship, won a 100,000-franc prize offered by Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe for the first person to make a flight from St. Cloud to the Eiffel Tower and back in less than half an hour.[33]
Many innovations took place at the Eiffel Tower in the early 20th century. In 1910, Father Theodor Wulf measured radiant energy at the top and bottom of the tower. He found more at the top than expected, incidentally discovering what are known today as cosmic rays.[34] Just two years later, on 4 February 1912, Austrian tailor Franz Reichelt died after jumping from the first level of the tower (a height of 57 m) to demonstrate his parachute design.[35] In 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, a radio transmitter located in the tower jammed German radio communications, seriously hindering their advance on Paris and contributing to the Allied victory at the First Battle of the Marne.[36] From 1925 to 1934, illuminated signs for Citroën adorned three of the tower's sides, making it the tallest advertising space in the world at the time.[37] In April 1935, the tower was used to make experimental low-resolution television transmissions, using a shortwave transmitter of 200 watts power. On 17 November, an improved 180-line transmitter was installed.[38]
On two separate but related occasions in 1925, the con artist Victor Lustig "sold" the tower for scrap metal.[39] A year later, in February 1926, pilot Leon Collet was killed trying to fly under the tower. His aircraft became entangled in an aerial belonging to a wireless station.[40] A bust of Gustave Eiffel by Antoine Bourdelle was unveiled at the base of the north leg on 2 May 1929.[41] In 1930, the tower lost the title of the world's tallest structure when the Chrysler Building in New York City was completed.[42] In 1938, the decorative arcade around the first level was removed.[43]
American soldiers watch the French flag flying on the Eiffel Tower, c. 25 August 1944
Upon the German occupation of Paris in 1940, the lift cables were cut by the French. The tower was closed to the public during the occupation and the lifts were not repaired until 1946.[44] In 1940, German soldiers had to climb the tower to hoist a swastika-centered Reichskriegsflagge,[45] but the flag was so large it blew away just a few hours later, and was replaced by a smaller one.[46] When visiting Paris, Hitler chose to stay on the ground. When the Allies were nearing Paris in August 1944, Hitler ordered General Dietrich von Choltitz, the military governor of Paris, to demolish the tower along with the rest of the city. Von Choltitz disobeyed the order.[47] On 25 June, before the Germans had been driven out of Paris, the German flag was replaced with a Tricolour by two men from the French Naval Museum, who narrowly beat three men led by Lucien Sarniguet, who had lowered the Tricolour on 13 June 1940 when Paris fell to the Germans.[44]
A fire started in the television transmitter on 3 January 1956, damaging the top of the tower. Repairs took a year, and in 1957, the present radio aerial was added to the top.[48] In 1964, the Eiffel Tower was officially declared to be a historical monument by the Minister of Cultural Affairs, André Malraux.[49] A year later, an additional lift system was installed in the north pillar.[50]
According to interviews, in 1967, Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau negotiated a secret agreement with Charles de Gaulle for the tower to be dismantled and temporarily relocated to Montreal to serve as a landmark and tourist attraction during Expo 67. The plan was allegedly vetoed by the company operating the tower out of fear that the French government could refuse permission for the tower to be restored in its original location.[51]
Base of the Eiffel Tower
In 1982, the original lifts between the second and third levels were replaced after 97 years in service. These had been closed to the public between November and March because the water in the hydraulic drive tended to freeze. The new cars operate in pairs, with one counterbalancing the other, and perform the journey in one stage, reducing the journey time from eight minutes to less than two minutes. At the same time, two new emergency staircases were installed, replacing the original spiral staircases. In 1983, the south pillar was fitted with an electrically driven Otis lift to serve the Jules Verne restaurant.[citation needed] The Fives-Lille lifts in the east and west legs, fitted in 1899, were extensively refurbished in 1986. The cars were replaced, and a computer system was installed to completely automate the lifts. The motive power was moved from the water hydraulic system to a new electrically driven oil-filled hydraulic system, and the original water hydraulics were retained solely as a counterbalance system.[50] A service lift was added to the south pillar for moving small loads and maintenance personnel three years later.[citation needed]
Robert Moriarty flew a Beechcraft Bonanza under the tower on 31 March 1984.[52] In 1987, A.J. Hackett made one of his first bungee jumps from the top of the Eiffel Tower, using a special cord he had helped develop. Hackett was arrested by the police.[53] On 27 October 1991, Thierry Devaux, along with mountain guide Hervé Calvayrac, performed a series of acrobatic figures while bungee jumping from the second floor of the tower. Facing the Champ de Mars, Devaux used an electric winch between figures to go back up to the second floor. When firemen arrived, he stopped after the sixth jump.[54]
The tower is the focal point of New Year's Eve and Bastille Day (14 July) celebrations in Paris.
For its "Countdown to the Year 2000" celebration on 31 December 1999, flashing lights and high-powered searchlights were installed on the tower. During the last three minutes of the year, the lights were turned on starting from the base of the tower and continuing to the top to welcome 2000 with a huge fireworks show. An exhibition above a cafeteria on the first floor commemorates this event. The searchlights on top of the tower made it a beacon in Paris's night sky, and 20,000 flashing bulbs gave the tower a sparkly appearance for five minutes every hour on the hour.[55]
The lights sparkled blue for several nights to herald the new millennium on 31 December 2000. The sparkly lighting continued for 18 months until July 2001. The sparkling lights were turned on again on 21 June 2003, and the display was planned to last for 10 years before they needed replacing.[56]
The tower received its 200,000,000th guest on 28 November 2002.[57] The tower has operated at its maximum capacity of about 7 million visitors per year since 2003.[58] In 2004, the Eiffel Tower began hosting a seasonal ice rink on the first level.[59] A glass floor was installed on the first level during the 2014 refurbishment.[60]
In 2016, during Valentine's Day, the performance UN BATTEMENT [61] by French artist Milène Guermont unfolds among the Eiffel Tower, the Montparnasse Tower and the contemporary artwork PHARES installed on the Place de la Concorde. This interactive pyramid-shaped sculpture allows the public to transmit the beating of their hearts thanks to a cardiac sensor. The Eiffel Tower and the Montparnasse Tower also light up to the rhythm of PHARES. This is the first time that the Eiffel Tower has interacted with a work of art.[citation needed]
Design
Material
The Eiffel Tower from below
The puddled iron (wrought iron) of the Eiffel Tower weighs 7,300 tonnes,[62] and the addition of lifts, shops and antennae have brought the total weight to approximately 10,100 tonnes.[63] As a demonstration of the economy of design, if the 7,300 tonnes of metal in the structure were melted down, it would fill the square base, 125 metres (410 ft) on each side, to a depth of only 6.25 cm (2.46 in) assuming the density of the metal to be 7.8 tonnes per cubic metre.[64] Additionally, a cubic box surrounding the tower (324 m × 125 m × 125 m) would contain 6,200 tonnes of air, weighing almost as much as the iron itself. Depending on the ambient temperature, the top of the tower may shift away from the sun by up to 18 cm (7 in) due to thermal expansion of the metal on the side facing the sun.[65]
Wind considerations
When it was built, many were shocked by the tower's daring form. Eiffel was accused of trying to create something artistic with no regard to the principles of engineering. However, Eiffel and his team – experienced bridge builders – understood the importance of wind forces, and knew that if they were going to build the tallest structure in the world, they had to be sure it could withstand them. In an interview with the newspaper Le Temps published on 14 February 1887, Eiffel said:
Is it not true that the very conditions which give strength also conform to the hidden rules of harmony? … Now to what phenomenon did I have to give primary concern in designing the Tower? It was wind resistance. Well then! I hold that the curvature of the monument's four outer edges, which is as mathematical calculation dictated it should be … will give a great impression of strength and beauty, for it will reveal to the eyes of the observer the boldness of the design as a whole.[66]
He used graphical methods to determine the strength of the tower and empirical evidence to account for the effects of wind, rather than a mathematical formula. Close examination of the tower reveals a basically exponential shape.[67] All parts of the tower were overdesigned to ensure maximum resistance to wind forces. The top half was even assumed to have no gaps in the latticework.[68] In the years since it was completed, engineers have put forward various mathematical hypotheses in an attempt to explain the success of the design. The most recent, devised in 2004 after letters sent by Eiffel to the French Society of Civil Engineers in 1885 were translated into English, is described as a non-linear integral equation based on counteracting the wind pressure on any point of the tower with the tension between the construction elements at that point.[67]
The Eiffel Tower sways by up to 9 cm (3.5 in) in the wind.[69]
Accommodation
Gustave Eiffel's apartment
When originally built, the first level contained three restaurants – one French, one Russian and one Flemish — and an "Anglo-American Bar". After the exposition closed, the Flemish restaurant was converted to a 250-seat theatre. A promenade 2.6-metre (8 ft 6 in) wide ran around the outside of the first level. At the top, there were laboratories for various experiments, and a small apartment reserved for Gustave Eiffel to entertain guests, which is now open to the public, complete with period decorations and lifelike mannequins of Eiffel and some of his notable guests.[70]
In May 2016, an apartment was created on the first level to accommodate four competition winners during the UEFA Euro 2016 football tournament in Paris in June. The apartment has a kitchen, two bedrooms, a lounge, and views of Paris landmarks including the Seine, Sacré-Cœur, and the Arc de Triomphe.[71]
Passenger lifts
The arrangement of the lifts has been changed several times during the tower's history. Given the elasticity of the cables and the time taken to align the cars with the landings, each lift, in normal service, takes an average of 8 minutes and 50 seconds to do the round trip, spending an average of 1 minute and 15 seconds at each level. The average journey time between levels is 1 minute. The original hydraulic mechanism is on public display in a small museum at the base of the east and west legs. Because the mechanism requires frequent lubrication and maintenance, public access is often restricted. The rope mechanism of the north tower can be seen as visitors exit the lift.[72]
Engraved names
Main article: List of the 72 names on the Eiffel Tower
Names engraved on the tower
Gustave Eiffel engraved on the tower the names of 72 French scientists, engineers and mathematicians in recognition of their contributions to the building of the tower. Eiffel chose this "invocation of science" because of his concern over the artists' protest. At the beginning of the 20th century, the engravings were painted over, but they were restored in 1986–87 by the Société Nouvelle d'exploitation de la Tour Eiffel, a company operating the tower.[73]
Aesthetics
The tower is painted in three shades: lighter at the top, getting progressively darker towards the bottom to complement the Parisian sky.[74] It was originally reddish brown; this changed in 1968 to a bronze colour known as "Eiffel Tower Brown".[75]
The only non-structural elements are the four decorative grill-work arches, added in Sauvestre's sketches, which served to make the tower look more substantial and to make a more impressive entrance to the exposition.[76]
A pop-culture movie cliché is that the view from a Parisian window always includes the tower.[77] In reality, since zoning restrictions limit the height of most buildings in Paris to seven storeys, only a small number of tall buildings have a clear view of the tower.[78]
Maintenance
Maintenance of the tower includes applying 60 tons of paint every seven years to prevent it from rusting. The tower has been completely repainted at least 19 times since it was built. Lead paint was still being used as recently as 2001 when the practice was stopped out of concern for the environment.[56][79]
Panorama of Paris from the Tour Eiffel
Panorama of Paris and its suburbs from the top of the Eiffel Tower
Tourism
Transport
The nearest Paris Métro station is Bir-Hakeim and the nearest RER station is Champ de Mars-Tour Eiffel.[80] The tower itself is located at the intersection of the quai Branly and the Pont d'Iéna.
Popularity
Number of visitors per year between 1889 and 2004
More than 250 million people have visited the tower since it was completed in 1889.[3] In 2015, there were 6.91 million visitors.[81] The tower is the most-visited paid monument in the world.[82] An average of 25,000 people ascend the tower every day which can result in long queues.[83]
Restaurants
The tower has two restaurants: Le 58 Tour Eiffel on the first level, and Le Jules Verne, a gourmet restaurant with its own lift on the second level. This restaurant has one star in the Michelin Red Guide. It was run by the multi-Michelin star chef Alain Ducasse from 2007 to 2017.[84] Starting May 2019, it will be managed by three star chef Frédéric Anton.[85] It owes its name to the famous science-fiction writer Jules Verne. Additionally, there is a champagne bar at the top of the Eiffel Tower.
From 1937 until 1981, there was a restaurant near the top of the tower. It was removed due to structural considerations; engineers had determined it was too heavy and was causing the tower to sag.[86] This restaurant was sold to an American restaurateur and transported to New York and then New Orleans. It was rebuilt on the edge of New Orleans' Garden District as a restaurant and later event hall.[87]
Replicas
Replica at the Paris Las Vegas Hotel, Nevada, United States.
Main article: List of Eiffel Tower replicas
As one of the most iconic landmarks in the world, the Eiffel Tower has been the inspiration for the creation of many replicas and similar towers. An early example is Blackpool Tower in England. The mayor of Blackpool, Sir John Bickerstaffe, was so impressed on seeing the Eiffel Tower at the 1889 exposition that he commissioned a similar tower to be built in his town. It opened in 1894 and is 158.1 m (518 ft) tall.[88] Tokyo Tower in Japan, built as a communications tower in 1958, was also inspired by the Eiffel Tower.[89]
There are various scale models of the tower in the United States, including a half-scale version at the Paris Las Vegas, Nevada, one in Paris, Texas built in 1993, and two 1:3 scale models at Kings Island, located in Mason, Ohio, and Kings Dominion, Virginia, amusement parks opened in 1972 and 1975 respectively. Two 1:3 scale models can be found in China, one in Durango, Mexico that was donated by the local French community, and several across Europe.[90]
In 2011, the TV show Pricing the Priceless on the National Geographic Channel speculated that a full-size replica of the tower would cost approximately US$480 million to build.[91] This would be more than ten times the cost of the original (nearly 8 million in 1890 Francs; ~US$40 million in 2018 dollars).
Communications
Top of the Eiffel Tower
The tower has been used for making radio transmissions since the beginning of the 20th century. Until the 1950s, sets of aerial wires ran from the cupola to anchors on the Avenue de Suffren and Champ de Mars. These were connected to longwave transmitters in small bunkers. In 1909, a permanent underground radio centre was built near the south pillar, which still exists today. On 20 November 1913, the Paris Observatory, using the Eiffel Tower as an aerial, exchanged wireless signals with the United States Naval Observatory, which used an aerial in Arlington, Virginia. The object of the transmissions was to measure the difference in longitude between Paris and Washington, D.C..[92] Today, radio and digital television signals are transmitted from the Eiffel Tower.
FM radio
FrequencykWService
87.8 MHz10France Inter
89.0 MHz10RFI Paris
89.9 MHz6TSF Jazz
90.4 MHz10Nostalgie
90.9 MHz4Chante France
Digital television
A television antenna was first installed on the tower in 1957, increasing its height by 18.7 m (61.4 ft). Work carried out in 2000 added a further 5.3 m (17.4 ft), giving the current height of 324 m (1,063 ft).[56] Analogue television signals from the Eiffel Tower ceased on 8 March 2011.
FrequencyVHFUHFkWService
182.25 MHz6—100Canal+
479.25 MHz—22500France 2
503.25 MHz—25500TF1
527.25 MHz—28500France 3
543.25 MHz—30100France 5
567.25 MHz—33100M6
Illumination copyright
Further information: Freedom of panorama § France
The Eiffel Tower illuminated in 2015
The tower and its image have been in the public domain since 1993, 70 years after Eiffel's death.[93] In June 1990 a French court ruled that a special lighting display on the tower in 1989 to mark the tower's 100th anniversary was an "original visual creation" protected by copyright. The Court of Cassation, France's judicial court of last resort, upheld the ruling in March 1992.[94] The Société d'Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (SETE) now considers any illumination of the tower to be a separate work of art that falls under copyright.[95] As a result, the SNTE alleges that it is illegal to publish contemporary photographs of the lit tower at night without permission in France and some other countries for commercial use.[96][97] For this reason, it is often rare to find images or videos of the lit tower at night on stock image sites,[98] and media outlets rarely broadcast images or videos of it.[99]
The imposition of copyright has been controversial. The Director of Documentation for what was then called the Société Nouvelle d'exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (SNTE), Stéphane Dieu, commented in 2005: "It is really just a way to manage commercial use of the image, so that it isn't used in ways [of which] we don't approve".[100] SNTE made over €1 million from copyright fees in 2002.[101] However, it could also be used to restrict the publication of tourist photographs of the tower at night, as well as hindering non-profit and semi-commercial publication of images of the illuminated tower.[102]
The copyright claim itself has never been tested in courts to date according to the 2014 article of the Art Law Journal, and there has never been an attempt to track down millions of netizens who have posted and shared their images of the illuminated tower on the Internet worldwide. It added, however, that permissive situation may arise on commercial use of such images, like in a magazine, on a film poster, or on product packaging.[103]
French doctrine and jurisprudence allows pictures incorporating a copyrighted work as long as their presence is incidental or accessory to the subject being represented,[104] a reasoning akin to the de minimis rule. Therefore, SETE may be unable to claim copyright on photographs of Paris which happen to include the lit tower.
Height changes
The pinnacle height of the Eiffel Tower has changed multiple times over the years as described in the chart below.[105]
FromToHeight mHeight ftType of additionRemarks
18891957312.271,025FlagpoleArchitectural height of 300 m 984 ft. Tallest freestanding structure in the world until surpassed by the Chrysler building in 1930. Tallest tower in the world until surpassed by the KCTV Broadcast Tower in 1956.
19571991320.751,052AntennaBroadcast antenna added in 1957 which made it the tallest tower in the world until the Tokyo Tower was completed the following year in 1958.
19911994317.961,043Antenna change
19942000318.71,046Antenna change
2000Current3241,063Antenna change
Taller structures
The Eiffel Tower was the world's tallest structure when completed in 1889, a distinction it retained until 1929 when the Chrysler Building in New York City was topped out.[106] The tower also lost its standing as the world's tallest tower to the Tokyo Tower in 1958 but retains its status as the tallest freestanding (non-guyed) structure in France.
Lattice towers taller than the Eiffel Tower
Further information: List of tallest towers in the world, Lattice tower, and Observation deck
NamePinnacle heightYearCountryTownRemarks
Tokyo Skytree634 m (2,080 ft)2011JapanTokyo
Kyiv TV Tower385 m (1,263 ft)1973UkraineKyiv
Dragon Tower336 m (1,102 ft)2000ChinaHarbin
Tokyo Tower333 m (1,093 ft)1958JapanTokyo
WITI TV Tower329.4 m (1,081 ft)1962United StatesShorewood, Wisconsin
St. Petersburg TV Tower326 m (1,070 ft)1962RussiaSaint Petersburg
Structures in France taller than the Eiffel Tower
Further information: List of tallest structures in France
NamePinnacle heightYearStructure typeTownRemarks
Longwave transmitter Allouis350 m (1,150 ft)1974Guyed mastAllouis
HWU transmitter350 m (1,150 ft)1971Guyed mastRosnayMilitary VLF transmitter; multiple masts
Viaduc de Millau343 m (1,125 ft)2004Bridge pillarMillau
TV Mast Niort-Maisonnay330 m (1,080 ft)1978Guyed mastNiort
Transmitter Le Mans-Mayet342 m (1,122 ft)1993Guyed mastMayet
La Regine transmitter330 m (1,080 ft)1973Guyed mastSaissacMilitary VLF transmitter
Transmitter Roumoules330 m (1,080 ft)1974Guyed mastRoumoulesSpare transmission mast for longwave; insulated against ground
See also
flagFrance portal
Eiffel Tower in popular culture
List of tallest buildings and structures in the Paris region
List of tallest buildings and structures in the world
List of tallest towers in the world
List of tallest freestanding structures in the world
List of tallest freestanding steel structures
List of transmission sites
Lattice tower
Eiffel Tower, 1909–1928 painting series by Robert Delaunay
References
Notes
"Eiffel Tower". CTBUH Skyscraper Center.
Eiffel Tower at Emporis
SETE. "The Eiffel Tower at a glance". Official Eiffel Tower website. Archived from the original on 14 April 2016. Retrieved 15 April 2016.
Engineering News and American Railway Journal. 22. G. H. Frost. 1889. p. 482.
Harvie, p. 78.
Loyrette, p. 116.
Loyrette, p. 121.
"Diagrams - SkyscraperPage.com". skyscraperpage.com.
Loyrette, p. 174.
Paul Souriau; Manon Souriau (1983). The Aesthetics of Movement. University of Massachusetts Press. p. 100. ISBN 0-87023-412-9.
Harvie, p. 99.
Loyrette, p. 176.
"The Eiffel Tower". News. The Times (32661). London. 1 April 1889. col B, p. 5.
Jill Jonnes (2009). Eiffel's Tower: And the World's Fair where Buffalo Bill Beguiled Paris, the Artists Quarreled, and Thomas Edison Became a Count. Viking. pp. 163–64. ISBN 978-0-670-02060-7.
Guillaume Apollinaire (1980). Anne Hyde Greet (ed.). Calligrammes: Poems of Peace and War (1913–1916). University of California Press. pp. 411–414. ISBN 978-0-520-01968-3.
SETE. "Origins and construction of the Eiffel Tower". Official Eiffel Tower website. Archived from the original on 31 July 2015. Retrieved 1 January 2014.
Loyrette, p. 123.
Loyrette, p. 148.
Eiffel, G; The Eiffel TowerPlate X
Harvie, p. 110.
"Construction of the Eiffel Tower". wonders-of-the-world.net.
Vogel, pp. 20–21.
Vogel, p. 28.
Vogel, pp. 23–24.
Eiffel, Gustave (1900). La Tour de Trois Cents Mètres (in French). Paris: Société des imprimeries Lemercier. pp. 171–3.
Harvie, pp. 122–23.
SETE. "The Eiffel Tower during the 1889 Exposition Universelle". Official Eiffel Tower website. Archived from the original on 25 April 2016. Retrieved 16 April 2016.
Harvie, pp. 144–45.
Eiffel, Gustave (1900). La Tour de Trois Cents Mètres. Paris: Lemercier. p. 335.
Jill Jonnes (23 May 2009). "Thomas Edison at the Eiffel Tower". Wonders and Marvels. Retrieved 2 January 2014.
Michelin Paris: Tourist Guide (5 ed.). Michelin Tyre Public Limited. 1985. p. 52. ISBN 9782060135427.
Watson, p. 829.
"M. Santos Dumont's Balloon". News. The Times (36591). London. 21 October 1901. col A, p. 4.
Theodor Wulf. Physikalische Zeitschrift. Contains results of the four-day-long observation done by Theodor Wulf at the top of the Eiffel Tower in 1910.
"L'inventeur d'un parachute se lance de le tour Eiffel et s'écrase sur le sol". Le Petit Parisien (in French). 5 February 1912. p. 1. Retrieved 26 November 2009.
Barbara Wertheim Tuchman (1994). August 1914. Papermac. p. 236. ISBN 978-0-333-30516-4.
Smith, Oliver (31 March 2018). "40 fascinating facts about the Eiffel Tower". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 14 November 2019.
Stephen Herbert (2004). A History of Early Television. 2. Taylor & Francis. p. 40. ISBN 978-0-415-32667-4.
Piers Letcher (2003). Eccentric France: The Bradt Guide to Mad, Magical and Marvellous France. Bradt Travel Guides. p. 105. ISBN 978-1-84162-068-8.
"An air tragedy". The Sunday Times. Perth, WA. 28 February 1926. Retrieved 2 January 2012.
Harriss, p. 178.
Claudia Roth Pierpont (18 November 2002). "The Silver Spire: How two men's dreams changed the skyline of New York". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on 27 February 2012.
Harriss, p. 195.
Harriss, pp. 180–84.
"HD Stock Video Footage – The Germans unfurl Nazi flags at the captured Palace of Versailles and Eiffel Tower during the Battle of France". www.criticalpast.com.
Smith, Oliver (4 February 2016). "Eiffel Tower: 40 fascinating facts". The Telegraph – via www.telegraph.co.uk.
Carlo D'Este (2003). Eisenhower: A Soldier's Life. Henry Holt and Company. p. 574. ISBN 978-0-8050-5687-7.
SETE. "The major events". Official Eiffel Tower website. Archived from the original on 31 March 2015. Retrieved 13 March 2014.
Harriss, p. 215.
SETE. "The Eiffel Tower's lifts". Official Eiffel Tower website. Archived from the original on 7 April 2016. Retrieved 15 April 2016.
Nick Auf der Maur (15 September 1980). "How this city nearly got the Eiffel Tower". The Montreal Gazette. Retrieved 29 May 2013.
Robert J. Moriarty. "A Bonanza in Paris". Air & Space Magazine. Retrieved 4 April 2008.
Jano Gibson (27 February 2007). "Extreme bid to stretch bungy record". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 24 May 2010.
"Tour Eiffel". Thierry Devaux (in French). Retrieved 19 March 2019.
SETE. "The Eiffel Tower's illuminations". Official Eiffel Tower website. Archived from the original on 22 August 2015. Retrieved 31 May 2014.
SETE. "All you need to know about the Eiffel Tower" (PDF). Official Eiffel Tower website. Retrieved 15 April 2016.
"The Eiffel Tower". France.com. 23 October 2003. Retrieved 16 April 2016.
Denis Cosnard (21 April 2014). "Eiffel Tower renovation work aims to take profits to new heights". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 April 2016.
Darwin Porter; Danforth Prince; G. McDonald; H. Mastrini; S. Marker; A. Princz; C. Bánfalvy; A. Kutor; N. Lakos; S. Rowan Kelleher (2006). Frommer's Europe (9th ed.). Wiley. p. 318. ISBN 978-0-471-92265-0.
"Eiffel Tower gets glass floor in refurbishment project". BBC News. 6 October 2014. Retrieved 6 October 2014.
User, Super. "PHARES (2015)". Milène GUERMONT.
David A. Hanser (2006). Architecture of France. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 66. ISBN 978-0-313-31902-0.
DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Europe. Dorling Kindersley. 2012. p. 163. ISBN 978-1-4093-8577-6.
Harriss, p. 60.
Harriss, p. 231.
SETE. "Debate and controversy surrounding the Eiffel Tower". Official Eiffel Tower website. Archived from the original on 8 September 2015. Retrieved 2 January 2013.
"Elegant shape of Eiffel Tower solved mathematically by University of Colorado professor". Science Daily. 7 January 2005. Retrieved 24 May 2010.
Watson, p. 807.
SETE. "FAQ: History/Technical". Official Eiffel Tower website. Archived from the original on 8 April 2016. Retrieved 16 April 2016.
Caitlin Morton (31 May 2015). "There is a secret apartment at the top of the Eiffel Tower". Architectural Digest. Conde Nast. Retrieved 30 June 2015.
Mary Papenfuss (20 May 2016). "Tourists have the chance to get an Eiffel of the view by staying in the Tower for a night". International Business Times. Retrieved 21 May 2016.
Eiffel Tower, Paris, France hisour.com. Retrieved 29 August 2021
SETE (2010). "The Eiffel Tower Laboratory". Official Eiffel Tower website. Archived from the original on 12 February 2017. Retrieved 25 January 2017.
SETE. "The Eiffel Tower gets beautified" (PDF). Official Eiffel Tower website. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 November 2015. Retrieved 8 November 2015.
SETE. "Painting the Eiffel Tower". Official Eiffel Tower website. Archived from the original on 26 October 2016. Retrieved 25 January 2017.
"History: Development of clear span buildings – Exhibition buildings". Architectural Teaching Resource. Tata Steel Europe, Ltd. Archived from the original on 5 October 2013. Retrieved 4 January 2014.
"The Eiffel Tower". France.com. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
"Eiffel Tower (Paris ( 7 th ), 1889)". Structurae. Retrieved 27 February 2021.
Bavelier, Ariane (3 December 2013). "Coup de pinceau sur la tour Eiffel". Lefigaro. Retrieved 28 March 2009.
SETE. "Getting to the Eiffel Tower". Official Eiffel Tower website. Archived from the original on 14 April 2016. Retrieved 16 April 2016.
"Number of Eiffel Tower visitors falls in wake of Paris attacks". France 24. 20 January 2016. Retrieved 15 April 2016.
Jean-Michel Normand (23 July 2007). "Tour Eiffel et souvenirs de Paris". Le Monde. France. Retrieved 24 May 2010.
"Eiffel Tower reopens to tourists after rare closure for 2-day strike". Fox News. Associated Press. 27 June 2013. Retrieved 16 April 2016.
Dali Wiederhoft. "Eiffel Tower: Sightseeing, restaurants, links, transit". Bonjour Paris. Archived from the original on 6 January 2014.
"Eiffel Tower in Paris". Paris Digest. 2018. Retrieved 14 September 2018.
Marcus, Frances Frank (10 December 1986). "New Orleans's 'Eiffel Tower'". The New York Times. Retrieved 22 November 2018.
Thomas, Jabari (15 September 2015). "Where you can find pieces of the Eiffel Tower in New Orleans". WGNO. Retrieved 22 November 2018.
"The Blackpool Tower". History Extra. Retrieved 6 March 2014.
"The red and white Eiffel Tower of Tokyo". KLM. Retrieved 16 April 2016.
Todd van Luling (19 August 2013). "The most legit Eiffel Tower replicas you didn't know existed". Huffpost Travel. Retrieved 16 April 2016.
"Eiffel Tower". Pricing the Priceless. Season 1. Episode 3. 9 May 2011. National Geographic Channel (Australia).
"Paris time by wireless". The New York Times. 22 November 1913. p. 1.
"Why it's actually illegal to take pictures of Eiffel Tower at night". The Jakarta Post. 9 December 2017.
"Cour de cassation 3 mars 1992, Jus Luminum n°J523975" (in French). Jus Luminum. Archived from the original on 16 November 2009.
Jimmy Wales (3 July 2015). "If you want to keep sharing photos for free, read this". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 April 2016.
"The Eiffel Tower image rights". Société d'Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel.
Hugh Morris (24 June 2015). "Freedom of panorama: EU proposal could mean holiday snaps breach copyright". The Telegraph. Retrieved 15 April 2016.
Nicholls, Will (14 October 2017). "Why Photos of the Eiffel Tower at Night are Illegal". PetaPixel. Retrieved 24 February 2021.
Cuttle, Jade (1 July 2019). "Why Photos of the Eiffel Tower at Night are Illegal". The Culture Trip. Retrieved 24 February 2021.
"Eiffel Tower: Repossessed". Fast Company. 2 February 2005. Retrieved 15 April 2016.
James Arnold (16 May 2003). "Are things looking up for the Eiffel Tower?". BBC News. Retrieved 16 April 2016.
Steve Schlackman (16 November 2014). "Do night photos of the Eiffel Tower violate copyright?". Artrepreneur Art Law Journal. Retrieved 13 July 2020.
Larsen, Stephanie (13 March 2017). "Is it Illegal to Take Photographs of the Eiffel Tower at Night?". Snopes. Retrieved 24 February 2021.
Notions Fondamentales Du Droit D'auteur (in French). World Intellectual Property Organization. 2002. p. 277. ISBN 978-92-805-1013-3. La représentation d'une œuvre située dans un lieu public n'est licite que lorsqu'elle est accessoire par rapport au sujet principal représenté ou traité
"Eiffel Tower, Paris - SkyscraperPage.com". skyscraperpage.com.
Chrysler (14 June 2004). "Chrysler Building – Piercing the Sky". CBS Forum. CBS Team. Retrieved 21 May 2017.
Bibliography
Chanson, Hubert (2009). "Hydraulic engineering legends Listed on the Eiffel Tower". In Jerry R. Rogers (ed.). Great Rivers History: Proceedings and Invited Papers for the EWRI Congress and Great Rivers History Symposium. American Society of Civil Engineers. ISBN 978-0-7844-1032-5.
Frémy, Dominique (1989). Quid de la tour Eiffel. R. Laffont. ISBN 978-2-221-06488-7.
The Engineer: The Paris Exhibition. XLVII. London: Office for Advertisements and Publication. 3 May 1889.
Harriss, Joseph (1975). The Eiffel Tower: Symbol of an Age. London: Paul Elek. ISBN 0236400363.
Harvie, David I. (2006). Eiffel: The Genius Who Reinvented Himself. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton. ISBN 0-7509-3309-7.
Jonnes, Jill (2009). Eiffel's Tower: The Thrilling Story Behind Paris's Beloved Monument …. Penguin. ISBN 978-1-101-05251-8.
Loyrette, Henri (1985). Eiffel, un Ingenieur et Son Oeuvre. Rizzoli. ISBN 978-0-8478-0631-7.
Musée d'Orsay (1989). 1889: la Tour Eiffel et l'Exposition Universelle. Editions de la Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Ministère de la Culture, de la Communication, des Grands Travaux et du Bicentenaire. ISBN 978-2-7118-2244-7.
Vogel, Robert M. (1961). "Elevator Systems of the Eiffel Tower, 1889". United States National Museum Bulletin. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. 228: 20–21.
Watson, William (1892). Paris Universal Exposition: Civil Engineering, Public Works, and Architecture. Washington, D.C.: Government Publishing Office.
External links
Eiffel Tower
at Wikipedia's sister projects
Definitions from Wiktionary
Media from Wikimedia Commons
Texts from Wikisource
Travel guides from Wikivoyage
Data from Wikidata
Official website Edit this at Wikidata
Eiffel Tower at Structurae
Records
Preceded by
Washington MonumentWorld's tallest structure
1889–1931
312 m (1,024 ft)[1]Succeeded by
Chrysler Building
World's tallest tower
1889–1956Succeeded by
KCTV Broadcast Tower
Preceded by
KCTV Broadcast TowerWorld's tallest tower
1957–1958Succeeded by
Tokyo Tower
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower
Tightrope walking
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"Tightrope" redirects here. For other uses, see Tightrope (disambiguation).
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The feet of a tightrope walker
Tightrope walking, also called funambulism, is the skill of walking along a thin wire or rope. It has a long tradition in various countries and is commonly associated with the circus. Other skills similar to tightrope walking include slack rope walking and slacklining.
Contents
1Types
2Ropes
3Biomechanics
4Famous tightrope artists
5Metaphorical use
6See also
7References
Types
Tightrope walking, Armenian manuscript, 1688
Tightwire is the skill of maintaining balance while walking along a tensioned wire between two points. It can be done either using a balancing tool (umbrella, fan, balance pole, etc.) or "freehand", using only one's body to maintain balance. Typically, tightwire performances either include dance or object manipulation. Object manipulation acts include a variety of props in their acts, such as clubs, rings, hats, or canes. Tightwire performers have even used wheelbarrows with passengers, ladders, and animals in their act. The technique to maintain balance is to keep the performer's centre of mass above their support point—usually their feet.
Highwire is a form of tightwire walking but performed at much greater height. Although there is no official height when tightwire becomes highwire, generally a wire over 20 feet (6 m) high are regarded as a highwire act.
Skywalk is a form of highwire which is performed at great heights and length. A skywalk is performed outdoors between tall building, gorges, across waterfalls or other natural and man-made structures.
Ropes
If the "lay" of the rope (the orientation of the constituent strands, the "twist" of a rope) is in one direction, the rope can twist on itself as it stretches and relaxes. Underfoot, this could be hazardous to disastrous in a tightrope. One solution is for the rope core to be made of steel cable, laid in the opposite direction to the outer layers, so that twisting forces balance each other out.
Biomechanics
Acrobats maintain their balance by positioning their centre of mass directly over their base of support, i.e. shifting most of their weight over their legs, arms, or whatever part of their body they are using to hold them up. When they are on the ground with their feet side by side, the base of support is wide in the lateral direction but narrow in the sagittal (back-to-front) direction. In the case of highwire-walkers, their feet are parallel with each other, one foot positioned in front of the other while on the wire. Therefore, a tightwire walker's sway is side to side, their lateral support having been drastically reduced. In both cases, whether side by side or parallel, the ankle is the pivot point.
A wire-walker may use a pole for balance or may stretch out his arms perpendicular to his trunk in the manner of a pole. This technique provides several advantages. It distributes mass away from the pivot point, thereby increasing the moment of inertia. This reduces angular acceleration, so a greater torque is required to rotate the performer over the wire. The result is less tipping. In addition, the performer can also correct sway by rotating the pole. This will create an equal and opposite torque on the body.
Tightwire-walkers typically perform in very thin and flexible, leather-soled slippers with a full-length suede or leather sole to protect the feet from abrasions and bruises, while still allowing the foot to curve around the wire. Though very infrequent in performance, amateur, hobbyist, or inexperienced funambulists will often walk barefoot so that the wire can be grasped between the big and second toe. This is more often done when using a rope, as the softer and silkier fibres are less taxing on the bare foot than the harder and more abrasive braided wire.
Famous tightrope artists
Maria Spelterini crossing Niagara Falls on July 4, 1876
Jultagi, the Korean tradition of tightrope walking
Charles Blondin, a.k.a. Jean-François Gravelet, crossed the Niagara Falls many times
Robert Cadman, early 18th-century British highwire walker and ropeslider
Jay Cochrane, Canadian, set multiple records for skywalking, including The Great China Skywalk[1] in Qutang Gorge, China, 639-metre-long (2,098 ft), 410-metre-high (1,340 ft) from one cliff wall to the opposite side above the Yangtze River; the longest blindfolded skywalk, 800-foot-long (240 m), 300-foot-high (91 m) in 1998, between the towers of the Flamingo Hilton in Las Vegas, Nevada, and broadcast on FOX Network's "Guinness World Records: Primetime" on Tuesday, February 23, 1999; In 2001, he became the first person to perform a skywalk in Niagara Falls, Canada, in more than a hundred years. His final performances took place during Skywalk 2012[2] with a world record submission[3] of 11.81 miles (19.01 km) in cumulative distance skywalking from the Skylon Tower at a height of 520 feet (160 m) traversing the 1,300 feet (400 m) highwire to the pinnacle of the Hilton Fallsview Hotel at 581 feet (177 m).
Con Colleano, Australian, "the Wizard of the Wire"
David Dimitri, Swiss highwire walker
Pablo Fanque, 19th-century British tightrope walker and "rope dancer", among other talents, although best known as the first black circus owner in Britain, and for his mention in the Beatles song, Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!
The Great Farini, a.k.a. Willie Hunt, crossed the Niagara Falls many times
Farrell Hettig, American highwire walker, started as a Wallenda team member, once held record for stee
Today is 'Buy Nothing Day' as well as 'Black Friday'.
Adbusters: Buy Nothing Day | Snopes: Black Friday
Photos are not from tsunami, rather they are from an event called a "tidal bore" which took place in Hangzhou, China in 2002. Note the Chinese architecture and people. www.snopes.com/photos/tsunami/tsunami1.asp
Why is it that, more often than not, urban legends seem to relay a message of subservience and modesty to women?
The urban legend depicted here is not one I found on the Snopes page so helpfully suggested by Evelet. No, this is one I remember from waaaaay back.
The needle hidden in the lipstick. Variations of this legend include such elaborations as the needle is infected with a disease or laced with some sort of drug. To this day I still think of this tale every time I bring a brand new tube of lipstick to my lips.
For FGR: Urban Legends
Photos are not from tsunami, rather they are from an event called a "tidal bore" which took place in Hangzhou, China in 2002. Note the Chinese architecture and people. www.snopes.com/photos/tsunami/tsunami1.asp
Cookeville, TN
Master Gardeners Exhibit
2017 Putnam Co. (TN) Fair
Twig fence designed and created by John Snope.
Oclock Gues Keumar Iko Lek Saeyo Mosa Oclock Horfee Oclock Shoe Choze Andre Oclock Tisko Dose Horfee Skube Cecster Kuma Hermes Koers Sambr Horfe Horfe Swiz Snope Argne Flask Spadz
Edited Landsat 8 image of snow in Algeria in the Sahara Desert near the city of Aïn Séfra. Color/processing variant.
Image source: earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=91556
Original caption: For the second time in three years, snow has accumulated in the desert near the northern Algerian town of Aïn Séfra. Sometimes called the “gateway to the desert,” the town of 35,000 people sits between the Sahara and the Atlas Mountains.
According to news and social media accounts, anywhere from 10 to 30 centimeters (4 to 12 inches) of snow accumulated on January 8, 2018, on some higher desert elevations (1000 meters or more above sea level). Social media photos showed citizens sliding down snow-covered sand dunes. Warming temperatures melted much of it within a day.
On January 8, the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 captured the data for these natural-color images of the snow in the Sahara Desert. At the top of the page, the Landsat 8 image was draped over a global digital elevation model, built from data acquired by NASA’s Shuttle Radar Topography Mission. The second and third images provide nadir (straight-down) closeups of the region, where snow covered dry mountaintops and the crests of tall sand dunes.
Snow in the Sahara and other parts of North Africa is infrequent, but not unprecedented. Measurable snow fell near Aïn Séfra in December 2016. Substantial snow also blanketed the Atlas Mountains in Morocco in February 2012 and January 2005. In fact, there are at least two ski resorts in the Atlas range, though the snow there is usually machine-made.
References
Dernieres Infos D'Algerie (2018, January 9) La Neige Recouvre les Dunes de Sables á Aïn Séfra. Accessed January 12, 2018.
Snopes (2018, January 9) Snowfall in the Sahara Desert? Accessed January 12, 2018.
The Washington Post (2018, January 9) It Snowed in the Sahara Desert. Really. Accessed January 12, 2018.
NASA Earth Observatory image by Joshua Stevens, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey and topographic data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). Story by Mike Carlowicz.
Instrument(s):
Space Shuttle - SRTM
Landsat 8 - OLI
2 shoes hung from a tree, wishing someone would come back and get me.
In almost any city you visit around the world, at some point you'll see somebody's shoes tossed over a power line, a high tree branch, or some other difficult-to-reach spot. Why do people do it?
This terrific Australian short documentary from Closer Productions, The Mystery of Flying Kicks, does a great job exploring the dizzying number of answers to this question. The filmmakers got answers from people all over the world, describing local legends and customs around tossing shoes into the air.
One of the pervasive myths, which Snopes has debunked, is that the shoes are used to mark the locations of drug dens or gangs. It appears that people toss their shoes — or other people's shoes — for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes it's celebratory, to mark a rite of passage like finishing up basic training in the military (painting your boots and tossing them festively over high wires is a military tradition in the US) or losing your virginity. Some say it's a form of bullying, while others say it's art or political protest.
The urge to launch your shoes into the air, hoping they'll dangle there forever, seems to be almost universal. And like many human practices, it's taken on new meanings the more it has spread.
You wouldn't hit a guy with glasses would you?
I'm in no shape to box, thanks to the holidays. I haven't worked out in over a week and I have been eating like there is no tomorrow. I am ashamed of myself.
But I'll be back to my better self after the new year.
I hope you all out there try to keep the holiday spirit alive and well through the whole year.
Day 209 of 365.
PS I don't know if glasses take getting used to, but at times I think they are doing more harm than good.
Snopes (pronounced /ˈsnoʊps/), also known as the Urban Legends Reference Pages, is a web site that is the best-known resource for validating and debunking urban legends, Internet rumors, e-mail forwards, and other such stories of uncertain or questionable origin in American popular culture.[1] Snopes is run by Barbara and David Mikkelson, a California couple who met on the alt.folklore.urban newsgroup. The Mikkelsons also founded the San Fernando Valley Folklore Society, and were credited as the owners of the site until 2005.[2] The site is organized according to topic and includes a message board where stories and pictures of questionable veracity may be posted.
A friend sent me this story in an email not long ago. Being touched by it I decided to make a collage of it. I have a 16 x 20 of this in my studio. A very touching and miraculous story, and one that brought tears to my eyes! You may have to view large to read it all, but it is amazing.
www.snopes.com/glurge/tablecloth.asp
Thank you all for comments and support this year. I know that God has plans for me this year, I just have to follow them.
God Bless
Barrack Obama birth certificate
State of Hawaii
www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthcertificate.asp
Now, where are John McCain's (born in Panama) and Sarah Palin's (born on Neptune) birth certificates?
In a recent discussion, someone mentioned that lime with cloves worked well as a mosquito repellant. I went to snopes to check that out and it seemed to be unverified. With Dengue Fever running rampant in Costa Rica, I was looking for a natural solution. So I've been testing it out. I can't see where it's doing anything. I still get bit by mosquitoes. This obviously isn't an overly scientific study. :)
I made this video simply because I was fascinated by this flying green insect that descended upon the cloves almost as soon as I put the lime by the window sill. The little winged creature was so into it, that he barely even noticed I touched him.
Vicksburg, Mississippi (est. 1825, pop. 23,542) • Facebook • MS Delta • The Town & the Battle —NY Times
• Jefferson Finis Davis (1808-1889) • born at Fairview, Kentucky, 8 mos. before Abraham Lincoln was born 125 mi. away at Hodgenville, KY • last of 10 children in family • named after Thomas Jefferson
• Davis's father, Samuel Emory Davis, served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War • family moved to Wilkinson Co., Mississippi, 1812 • enrolled in Catholic school of Saint Thomas at St. Rose Priory, Kentucky 1816 • attended college at age ten • enrolled at Transylvania University, 1821 • U.S. Military Academy cadet, graduated 23rd of 34 in the class of 1828 • commissioned as second lieutenant in the U.S. Army, 1st Infantry Reg.
• served under future U.S. president Col. Zachary Taylor • at the conclusion of the Black Hawk War, assigned to escort American Indian war leader Black Hawk to prison, 1832 • in his autobiography, the chief stated that Davis had treated him "with much kindness" —Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak (Black Hawk)
• in June, 1835, having resigned his commission, Davis married Col. Taylor’s daughter, Sarah Knox "Knoxie" Taylor • 3 mos. after the wedding, she died of malaria
• developed Brierfield Plantation at Davis Bend, MS • was situated beside his brother Joseph's Hurricane Plantation [photo] • by 1860 he owned 113 slaves [slave quarters photo] • adopted his brother's trial by peers self-government system, used to adjudicate disputes & offenses • this was atypical of American slaveholders • the plantation also had a resident black preacher, "Uncle Bob," a slave unsuited for field work yet a favorite of his master: "He was as free from guile and as truthful a man as I ever knew." —Jeffn. Davis
• in 1845 Davis married 18 yr. old Varina Banks Howell (1826-1906), granddaughter of New Jersey Governor Richard Howell & Kezia Burr Howell, who was related to both theologian Jonathan Edwards & Aaron Burr, 3rd Vice President of the U.S. • educated at her home in Natchez, MS & at Madame Grelaud's French School in Philadelphia • hometown friend, Sarah Ellis, was a classmate
• Varina soon learned 2 things about her new husband: 1) he was a traditionalist regarding gender roles & expected her to comply with his wishes, and 2) he loved his late wife Knoxie more than he loved her (their honeymoon included a visit to Knoxie's grave) • nevertheless, Varina enjoyed the privilege & affluence of life as Mrs. Jefferson Davis —Encyclopedia Virginia
• “He never had with soldiers, children or negroes any difficulty to impress hiself upon their hearts.” —Varina Davis • his kindness was occasionally misinterpreted: one of Davis's slaves told Varina that after his 1st wife died she prepared dinner for him, but the meal didn't suit his taste • cheerfully declining, his lighthearted attempt to spare her feelings offended her: "Master did me mighty mean dat time; he orter cussed me, but it was mean to make fun of me."
• though known as a prickly personality with bouts of depression, Davis's courteous treatment of black people impressed: "I got a lesson in the treatment of negroes when I was a young man returning South from Harvard. I stopped in Washington and called on Jefferson Davis... We walked down Pennsylvania Avenue. Many negroes bowed to Mr. Davis and he returned the bow. He was a very polite man. I finally said to him that I thought he must have a good many friends among the negroes. He replied, 'I cannot allow any negro to outdo me in courtesy.'" —R.W. Milsaps in "Jefferson Davis, the Negroes and the Negro Problem," by Walter L. Fleming
• the couple had 6 children, only one of whom bore offspring & lived a full life span • their youngest child, Varina Anne “Winnie” Davis (1864-1898), was born in the Confederate White House & later gained fame as the “Daughter of the Confederacy” [postcard]
• in 1846 at age 38, Davis resigned from his MS house seat to lead the Mississippi Rifles in the Mexican-American War • at the Battle of Monterrey, 1847, led a successful charge on the La Tenería fort • fought bravely at the Battle of Buena Vista & was shot in the foot • declined both a federal commission as brig. gen. & command of a militia brigade, arguing that the Constitution gives the power of appointing militia officers to the states, not the federal govt.
• appointed to U.S. Senate, 1848 • appointed Secty. of War by U.S. Pres. Franklin Pierce, 1853 • modernized the army • re-entered the Senate in 1857, but following Mississippi's Jan., 1861 secession from the union, tendered his resignation & delivered a Farewell Address:
"... “we are about to be deprived in the Union of the rights which our fathers bequeathed to us.”
"I hope … for peaceful relations with you, though we must part. They may be mutually beneficial to us in the future, as they have been in the past, if you so will it. The reverse may bring disaster on every portion of the country."
• the South's secession from the U.S.A. came as no surprise; in fact a few areas, both south & north had already flirted with it • to many Southerners, Lincoln's ascent to the U.S. Presidency & his promise to end the extension of slavery portended a congress increasingly hostile to the South & ultimately, the death of southern sovereignty, threatening to not only stain the South's honor-shame culture with despised Yankee values, but also eradicate the ancient engine of its economy— legal slavery
• although abolitionism had been gaining traction in the U.S. & Britain since the 17th c., in the South the common perception of human bondage was framed by scientific racism, creating a world view in which white supremacy was conventional wisdom affirmed by consonant bits of history & scripture, i.e., it was predictable homo sapiens behavior, ideology serving self-interest, tribal loyalty muting conscience, save for the rare radicals north & south who believed all races to be equally evolved, dismissing the long-held conceit later known as the White Man's Burden
"My own convictions as to negro slavery are strong. It has its evils and abuses... We recognize the negro as God and God's Book and God's Laws, in nature, tell us to recognize him - our inferior, fitted expressly for servitude... You cannot transform the negro into anything one-tenth as useful or as good as what slavery enables them to be." —Jeffn. Davis
"[Slavery] was established by decree of Almighty God... it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation... it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts." —Jeffn. Davis
• though Abraham Lincoln opposed slavery, his antebellum view of white supremacy was similar to that of Davis:
“I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races … I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races from living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be a position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.” —Abraham Lincoln, 4th Debate, Charleston, IL, 18 Sep 1858
• Davis was appointed Major General of the Army of Mississippi, then elected provisional President of the Confederate States of America by acclamation • inaugurated 18 Feb, 1861 • appointed General Robert E. Lee to command the Army of Northern Virginia
"All we ask is to be let alone." —Jeffn. Davis
• the choice of a relatively moderate* President —Davis— over ardent secessionist Fire-Eaters, suggests a general desire for peaceful coexistence with the North, a reasonable choice (if available) given the Union's overwhelming advantages in population, weapons, transportation & industrial capacity
*apparently Davis's moderate outlook did not include abolitionists; to make a point, he once suggested that the use of lynch law might be an appropriate way to deal with them
• Davis's desire to avoid war notwithstanding, Lincoln — determined to preserve the Union — forced the Confederates to make a choice by dispatching ships to resupply Fort Sumter, which South Carolina viewed as a violation of its sovereignty
• neither side wanted to be perceived as the aggressor but Lincoln's strategy left the South little choice • hoping for recognition & support from sympathetic European powers, Davis & all but one member of his cabinet chose to defend the legitimacy of the Confederacy by force of arms • Secty. Of State, Robert Toombs, dissented:
"Mr. President, at this time it is suicide, murder, and will lose us every friend at the North. You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest which extends from mountain to ocean, and legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death. It is unnecessary; it puts us in the wrong; it is fatal." • hostilities at Ft. Sumter began 12 April, 1861
• Varina Davis Howell became the Confederacy’s first (& only) First Lady • she staunchly defended her husband during the war • was pro-slavery & quietly pro-Union, retaining her friendships with the spouses of key figures in the Lincoln administration • indicative of her popularity, Confederate founders of Virginia City, MT, named their town Varina before a Unionist judge renamed it Virginia
• Varina's "very dark" complexion [photo] inspired members of Richmond's elite to describe her as a "squaw", a term that among mid-19th century whites had not only racial but also sexual connotations • she was also criticized for addressing her husband by his first name
• in his journal, Confederate Lt. James Malbone wrote that she was "dark complected" & had "very very brown skin, dark eyes" & "high cheek bones, wide mouth." • while some historians have speculated that Varina was a Quadroon, research has thus far failed to produce conclusive evidence of African ancestry -First Lady of the Confederacy: Varina Davis's Civil War, by Joan E. Cashin
• in Feb., 1864, Varina saw an octaroon boy being beaten by a black woman • she interceded & brought the boy home to the Confederate White House • he identified himself as Jim Limber • Varina gave him clothes belonging to their son, Joe • arranged for his freedom • may have adopted him • he came to be known as Jim Limber Davis • 3 mos. later the First Family's five-year-old son, Jefferson Davis, Jr., died after a 3-story plunge from a balcony, which the President ordered torn down the following day
• drawing on his West Point training, the battle-hardened president took personal charge of Confederate war plans, appointing generals and issuing orders • was unable to find a strategy to defeat the overwhelmingly superior Union force • diplomatic initiatives failed to gain recognition from any foreign country, although he was able to secure desperately needed arms from Britain • he had no answer, however, for the collapsing Confederate economy
• on 27 March, 1865, Varina, Jim & the Davis children fled Richmond to avoid a Union Army assault • on 10 April, the day after Confederate Gen. Robt. E. Lee's surrender to Union Gen. U. S. Grant, Jefferson Davis followed with a cadre of advisors, intending to join up w/Gen. Kirby Smith in Texas to wage guerilla warfare against Union occupation troops • with a $100K bounty on his head, he reunited with his family, 7 May
• on 10 May, encamped near Irwinville, GA, the group was awakened by gunfire • Varina urged her husband to escape • he accidentally (or intentionally) threw on his wife's raglan, which could pass for a man's coat • Varina threw her shawl over his head & sent her female servant with a bucket to walk w/Davis as if they were fetching water
• according to Union Col. Benjamin D. Pritchard, who was entering the encampment at the time, a woman loudly called after them, “Bring me a bucket of water — quick! We want to wash our faces.” and then, as if to a sentry, “Let my old woman-servant pass and bring us a bucket of water — we want to get up and dress ourselves.” • the Union soldiers saw through the ruse, captured Davis & arrested him as a suspect in the 15 April assassination of Abraham Lincoln —New York Times, 22 Nov, 1873
• U.S. Secty. of War Edwin Stanton was notified of the capture • was told that Davis had tried to escape disguised as a woman • immediately issued orders to have the wardrobe delivered to him • not content to wait for the evidence, he mocked up a mannequin wearing the presumed female garments & invited the press in for a photo op —The Confederate Image by Mark E. Neely Jr.
• though the Confederacy had been defeated, its infrastructure obliterated & its currency worthless, for many in the North, closure demanded further revenge • the press obliged with countless schadenfreude-inducing caricatures of Davis's capture, such as The Head of the Confederacy on a New Base & A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, all depicting Davis as a cowardly, cross-dressed villian • the gleeful mocking offered respite from the wartime anger expressed in various images of the Confederate President hanging from a gallows, which were published throughout the war
• songs about the incident were written, e.g., Jeff in Petticoats • caricaturists continued to vie for the most emasculating possible portrayal of Davis in drag, & P.T. Barnum installed a waxwork tableau of the scene at his American Museum
• in 1861, a southern political cartoonist had similarly exploited the alleged Baltimore Plot to assassinate Pres. Lincoln • en route to Washington, the president was heavily guarded & apparently wearing a disguise as his train passed through Baltimore unannounced & without incident • nevertheless, German immigrant Adalbert Volck (1828-1912) couldn't resist
• when Stanton finally received Davis's now notorious "female disguise," instead of the "hoopskirt, sunbonnet and calico wrapper" described in the press he saw this • he jotted down "Shawl, waterproof and spurs worn by Jeff. Davis on the day of his capture, May 10, 1865" • stashed the evidence at the War Dept., not to be seen again until 1945, allowing the myth of the cowardly Confederate President to continue • President in Petticoats —ICP Museum • though the mocking hurt Davis deeply, he chose not to address it publicly
• "I have long since ceased to combat falsehood... borne upon the wings of hate and vilification." —Jeffn. Davis
• Davis was transported to Fort Monroe, VA, aka "Freedom Fortress for having remained under Union control throughout the war & freeing every slave that passed though its gates • imprisoned there for ~2 yrs. • indicted for treason • maintained he hadn't committed treason because his state had legally seceded, therefore he was no longer a U.S. citizen • amid fears that a trial might validate the constitutionality of secession, President Andrew Johnson pardoned former Confederates from the crime of treason
Fortress Monroe, Virginia, August 21, 1865
My Dear Wife,
…To morrow it will be three months since we were suddenly and unexpectedly separated... I sought permission to write to you that I might make some suggestions as to your movements and as to domestic arrangements… It is to be inferred that you have decided and I think wisely not to return to our old home, at least in the present disturbed condition of society. Thus you have the world before you but not where to chose, as the loss of our property will require the selection to be, with a view to subsistence.
Should I regain my liberty before our "people" have become vagrant there are many of them whose labor I could direct so as to make it not wholly unprofitable. Their good faith under many trials, and the mutual affection between them and myself make me always solicitous for their welfare and probably keeps them expectant of my coming. Should my fate be not to return to that country you can best be advised by Brother Jos. as to what and how it should be attempted, if any thing may be done. Always understand however that I do not mean that you should attempt in person to do any thing in the matter. I often think of “old Uncle Bob” and always with painful anxiety. If Sam has rejoined him he will do all in his power for the old man’s comfort and safety.
…If my dear Margaret is with you give to her my tenderest love, she always appears to me associated with little Winnie. Kiss the Baby for me, may her sunny face never be clouded, though dark the morning of her life has been.
My dear Wife, equally the centre of my love and confidence, remember how good the Lord has always been to me, how often he has wonderfully preserved me, and put thy trust in Him.
Ever affectionately your Husband
Jeffn. Davis
• in May, 1866, Varina visited U.S. Pres. Andrew Johnson in Washington to request better care for her husband, then took up permanent residence at Ft. Monroe • on 13 May, 1867, $100K bail bond for Davis posted & accepted, signed by Cornelius Vanderbilt, Horace Greeley, & radical abolitionist Gerrit Smith, who had helped fund John Brown in 1859 but believed that the North bore some responsibility for slavery • Davis was released • The Pardon of Jefferson Davis and the 14th Amendment —Constitution Daily • Varina Davis - Refugee, The American Civil War Museum
“It has been said that I should apply to the United States for a pardon, but repentance must precede the right of pardon, and I have not repented.” —Jeffn. Davis, 1881
• postwar, the Davis family suffered from financial difficulties • moved to the Peabody Hotel, Memphis [photo] • Davis was elected president of Carolina Life Insurance Co. @ $12K/yr. • company went bankrupt during the Panic of 1873 • attempted to revive Brierfield Plantation with little success • Joseph Davis eventually sold his Davis Bend plantation to his former slave, Ben Montgomery (1819-1877), an inventor & planter whose cotton won the $500 1st place prize at the 1870 St. Louis Fair
• Ben's son, Isaiah T. Montgomery [photo] founded the town of Mound Bayou, MS • "...I am willing that the Negro should be disfranchised because he is ignorant, but I am not willing that he should be disfranchised because he is Black. And if intelligence is to be made a test of suffrage I insist that the White man shall submit to the same requirements that are imposed upon the Black man." — Isaiah T. Montgomery Tells His Own Story• Montgomery & Sons (W.T. Montgomery & Co.) mercantile store [photo]
• Varina’s old friend & Philadelphia classmate, Sarah Ellis Dorsey offered the Davises a cottage at Bouvoir, her gulf front Biloxi, MS estate • rumors of a Dorsey/Jeff Davis affair persisted
• diagnosed with terminal cancer, Dorsey bequeathed Beauvoir to Davis • while residing there, he wrote The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, published in 1881 • Sarah Anne Ellis Dorsey: A Woman of Uncommon Mind —Mississippi History Now
• the family lived at Beauvoir throughout the 1880s • in spite of abundant evidence to the contrary, Davis still claimed that southern planters had treated slaves humanely & he continued to believe in the virtue of the South’s “Lost Cause” even as Varina moved past it
• Winnie rejoined her family after completing studies in Germany & France • became a favorite of Confederate veterans • attended reunions w/her father • at Beauvoir, she celebrated her 18th birthday with her family & Oscar Wilde • Davis's summation of the evening: "I didn't like the man." —Winnie Davis, Oscar Wilde and Nineteenth Century Celebrity
• Winnie's engagement to Syracuse, NY patent attorney Alfred Wilkinson caused a public furor thorughout the South • Wilkinson was not only a Yankee but also the grandson of abolitionist Samuel Joseph May • though Jefferson & Varina gave half-hearted blessings to an eventual marriage, the couple's 1890 engagement didn't last long • neither Winnie nor Fred ever married • Winnie Davis: Daughter of the Lost Cause by Heath Hardage Lee • Winnie Davis's "Italian Journal"
• Davis remained at Beauvoir until his death in 1889 • Varina was said to have been too grieved to consider a burial site • he was temporarily interred at Metairie Cemetery, New Orleans after a grand funeral procession through a crowd estimated at 200,000 lining the streets of New Orleans [photo] • Varina later chose Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond as the President of the Confederacy's final resting place
• on 28 May, 1893, a funeral train, arranged by Varina, departed with Davis's remains, his 2 surviving daughters, a number of dignitaries & a military escort commanded by Gen. Stephen D. Lee • also on the train was Davis's former slave, "Uncle Bob" Brown, who was reported to have "wept uncontrollably" at the sight of flowers laid by children beside the tracks at Beauvoir • Varina awaited the cortège in Richmond where a crowd of ~75,000 lined the streets when the train arrived • Jefferson Davis was laid to rest with taps & a 21 gun salute
• his American citizenship was restored by Congress, 1978 • in signing the law, President Jimmy Carter called it “the last act of reconciliation in the Civil War” • photo: 3 Davis generations at Beauvoir
• in 1889, Varina and Winnie moved to New York to pursue writing careers • lived in various residential hotels, finally settling in the Gerrard Hotel • Varina wrote articles for Joseph Pulitzer’s newspaper, the New York World • Pulitzer, a Jewish immigrant from Hungary, was married to Jefferson Davis’s cousin, Kate Davis
• in her articles, Varina advocated reconciliation between the North & South (as had her husband) • shocked many fellow southerners when she declared it God’s will that the North won the war • formed a friendship with another former First Lady, Ulysses S. Grant’s widow, Julia, whose southern acculturation (both born to slaveholding families) provided the two with much common ground while living in Manhattan • The Two Julias —New York Times • Christmas in the Confederate White House by Varina Davis • the published novels of Varina Anne Jefferson Davis
• in Atlanta, July 1898, Winnie became ill following an appearance in pouring rain at a Confederate Vet Reunion • travelled by train to Narragansett Pier, Rhode Island • joined her mother at the Rockingham Hotel, where they summered every year • Winnie's cold was followed by pneumonia • she died 18 Sep, age 34 • Varina, devastated, never recovered
• on 16 Oct, 1906, the anivarsary of the deaths of her sons William & Jeff in 1872 & 1878, Varina died of pneumonia at the Majestic Hotel, NYC • the mayor of New York sent a large contingent of mounted police to accompany the procession to the railroad station alongside members of New York's United Confederate Veterans Camp • General Frederick Grant, son of Julia and President Ulyses Grant, ordered a detachment of federal troops to join the escort, the first time in U.S. history a woman was given this honor
• the bronze statue of Pres. Jefferson Davis holding a Confederate flag and a crumpled piece of paper (Confederate Constitution?) was sculpted by English born American sculptor, Henry Hudson Kitson (1863-1947)
• Vicksburg National Military Park preserves the site of the American Civil War Battle of Vicksburg (1863) • the 47-day Union siege ended in the Confederate surrender of the city • victory here & at Port Hudson, LA, gave the Union control of the Mississippi River • park includes 1,325 historic monuments & markers, 20 miles (32 km) of Civil War era trenches & earthworks, 144 cannons & the USS Cairo, a restored gunboat... read on
• originally established in 1899 • 5th national military park under the control of the U.S. War Department • ownership transferred to the U.S. Department of the Interior & the National Park Service, 1933 • 8th oldest National Park • Facebook
• Vicksburg's State Memorials • the military leaders of the Battle of Vicksburg [photos] • Civil War photos —Pinterest
• National Register # 66000100, 1966
Photos are not from tsunami, rather they are from an event called a "tidal bore" which took place in Hangzhou, China in 2002. Note the Chinese architecture and people. www.snopes.com/photos/tsunami/tsunami1.asp
John McCain's plane has no American flag on its tail and it never did. McCain has been flying in a French-made A320 Airbus aircraft for his entire campaign which put several American aerospace employees out of work. Finally on June 2008 McCain leased the above 737.
At least Barack Obama's plane (an American-made Boeing 757) had a flag painted on the tail during the entire primary season. And Obama has always had an American flag painted on his plane's fuselage. Right-wing nut cases are trying to attack Obama for changing the paint scheme on his plane. Below is the attack email full of right-wing hate. (included for google searches)
= = = =
WAKE UP TO WHAT IS HAPPENING !
Check it out at www.snopes.com
I cannot believe that anyone who has the slightest bit of loyalty to this country could vote for this clown! WHAT A DISGRACE!!! Obama The Patriot - Removes American Flag From His Plane. The Patriot Room Posted on Tuesday, July 22, 2008 8:11:07 AM by Bill Dupray. Barack Obama recently finished a $500,000 total overhaul of his 757. And as part of the new design, he decided to remove the American flag from the tail... What American running for President of the United States would remove the symbol of his country? And worse, he replaced the flag with it with a symbol of himself... Please foward this on if you're not ashamed of your country or it's flag & think this is a disgrace!
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Again, note the above photo of John McCain's flag on his plane - look real close - yep, there is no flag on McCain's tail. McCain has recently (mid-2008) painted an American flag on the fuselage since his right-wing nut-case supporters started attacking Obama's plane.
As it turns out, both Obama's and McCain's planes have flags painted on the fuselage - just not on the tail.
Should people vote on candidates based on the color scheme of their rented planes? Of course not - but if the right-wing can't win on the issues and has to start making up non-issues like flag worshipping they need to keep it even-handed and look at their own candidate.
Seen here, homemade chorizo with red & black beans, and an egg (obviously), thinly sliced lime & tomatillo, sour cream, avocado, and cilantro atop old-style corn tortillas (barely visible).
It's truly a "south of the border" inspired meal!
You'd think it was Cinco de Mayo, or something!
Yet, here today - July 4 - in the United States of America we're celebrating the anniversary of our Declaration of Independence from England, which occurred July 4, 1776 with the signing of the document so named, which further declared that the colonies (of which at the time, there were 13) were a new nation independent of English rule.
Interestingly enough, it was preceded by three years a seminal event, which concerned a matter of reduced taxes upon imported trade that allowed one company to undercut prices of all other competitors - including smugglers - and thereby create a monopolized market, which was the proverbial "straw that broke the camel's back," and remains known to this day as "The Boston Tea Party."
The event was not secret, and rather, was very highly publicized. Here's an image of a printed document (called a 'broadside') maintained by the Library of Congress, which is notifying of the event .
The gist of the matter was that the English government used tax abatement as a type of subsidy to prop up one company to the detriment of other competitors.
To be certain, The Boston Tea Party was not a violent event, and there were no injuries, no lives lost, nor property destroyed... save for the tea (Chinese tea in 342 chests, which weighed approximately 90,000 lbs (40,823kg) and valued then at approximately £9,659), and one padlock which was replaced by the participants the next day. It's also interesting to note that the three ships boarded between 7 & 10PM were vessels owned by colonists. The ships "Beaver" and "Dartmouth" were built and owned by the Rotch’s, an affluent Nantucket Quaker family. While the "Eleanor" was one of several vessels owned by leading Boston merchant, John Rowe.
And, for all our internal problems, America has unquestionably become the greatest nation upon the face of the Earth. Her freedoms, more accurately termed as liberties, are among the most liberal in the world - and it seems that some at home have forgotten that freedom - "libertatem" in Latin - remains a radical concept in numerous places the world over.
As my buddy Doug Mississippi Snopes once opined, "The urge of politicians to control the lives of other people is almost irresistable."
And if you think about it, freedom is a dangerous thing, because you have to trust other people.
So far, we in this nation seem to have been doing quite well with that liberal concept. But we must constantly remain alert for those who would sell our liberties for whatever cheap trinket they can obtain, or to those whose friendship is, or can be purchased... kinda' like a prostitute. Me? I'm all for free love, not fee love.
But freedom also carries responsibilities, and part of freedom means that you don't do things that hurt other people... regardless of whether or not you have the freedom/liberty to do whatever it is you do.
It is my opinion that in the name of "Free Trade" our nation has unwisely sold our heritage and birthright of Independence and freedom for a bowl of porridge called "Free Trade."
I hope the powers that be enjoy it.
Happy Independence Day!
I close with these parting words which you ought to recognize - if not, look 'em up:
"This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."
"And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
"Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
"Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!
"But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
"Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
"Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
"And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!""
Amen!
Let freedom ring!
A friend sent this to me, and I want to help get the word out!
Please tell every dog or cat owner you know. Even if you don't have a pet, please pass this to those who do.
Over the weekend, the doting owner of two young lab mixes purchased Cocoa Mulch from Target to use in their garden. The dogs loved the way it smelled and it was advertised to keep cats away from their garden. Their dog (Calypso) decided the mulch smelled good enough to eat and devoured a large helping. She vomited a few times which was typical when she eats something new but wasn't acting lethargic in any way. The next day, Mom woke up and took Calypso out for her morning walk . Half way through the walk, she had a seizure and died instantly.
Although the mulch had NO warnings printed on the label, upon further investigation on the company's web site,
this product is HIGHLY toxic to dogs and cats.
Cocoa Mulch is manufactured by Hershey's, and they claim that "It is true that studies have shown that 50% of the dogs that eat Cocoa Mulch can suffer physical harm to a variety of degrees (depending on each individual dog). However, 98% of all dogs won't eat it."
*Snopes site gives the following information:http://www.snopes.com/critters/crusader/cocoamulch.asp *
Cocoa Mulch, which is sold by Home Depot, Foreman's Garden Supply and other Garden supply stores contains a lethal ingredient called 'Theobromine'. It is lethal to dogs and cats. It smells li ke chocolate and it really attracts dogs. They will ingest this stuff and die. Several deaths already occurred in the last 2-3 weeks.
Theobromine is in all chocolate, especially dark or baker's chocolate which is toxic to dogs. Cocoa bean shells contain potentially toxic quantities of theobromine, a xanthine compound similar in effects to caffeine and theophylline. A dog that ingested a lethal quantity of garden mulch made from cacao bean shells developed severe convulsions and died 17 hours later. Analysis of the stomach contents and the ingested cacao bean shells revealed the presence of lethal amounts of theobromine.
**PLEASE PASS THIS ON**
Rabid, directed by David Croenberg, more information over here.
Marilyn Chambers may be better known for modeling on the Ivory Soap box or perhaps some of her other movies during the 70's, such as Behind the Green Door, more here.
