The Eiffel Tower opens to the public at the Paris World's Fair

When the 1889 Exposition Universelle opened in Paris, the city unveiled a structure unlike anything the world had seen: a lattice of wrought iron rising more than 300 metres into the sky. Designed under engineer Gustave Eiffel to mark the centenary of the French Revolution, the tower had been finished on 31 March 1889 in just over two years.

On 15 May 1889, the World’s Fair began and the Eiffel Tower opened to the public for the first time. Remarkably, not a single elevator was yet running. Undeterred, nearly 30,000 visitors climbed the 1,710 steps to the summit in that opening week alone.

A tower many Parisians had dismissed as a monstrous eyesore became, almost overnight, the symbol of the city.

Many leading artists and writers had signed a furious protest against the design, calling it useless and grotesque. Yet the public verdict was overwhelming: by the end of the fair, the tower had drawn close to two million visitors, vindicating Eiffel and cementing its place as the tallest building in the world at the time.