Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff production of iHeart Radio, Hey brain Stuff
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogelbong here. The Eiffel Tower is one of the
Speaker 1: world's most famous selfie backdrops, but it's also home to
Speaker 1: a little known apartment with an intriguing history steeped in
Speaker 1: science and secrecy. The Eiffel Tower was unveiled in Paris
Speaker 1: as the Peace to Resistance of the nineteen nine World's Fair.
Speaker 1: It was engineered as a testament to France's technological machinations
Speaker 1: and as a monumental way to mark the one d
Speaker 1: anniversary of the French Revolution. Gustav Eiffel, whose company designed
Speaker 1: and built the tower, added a number of furtive extras
Speaker 1: to it, ranging from a secret apartment to telegraph and
Speaker 1: radio broadcast equipment. It was this apartment that may have
Speaker 1: saved the Eiffel Tower from being torn down as a
Speaker 1: temporary exhibit left over from the World's Fair, a demolition
Speaker 1: that was slated for twenty years from the time of
Speaker 1: its debut. Turns out, the French government discovered and appreciated
Speaker 1: the wireless Yes wireless in eighteen eighty nine telegraphed transmitter
Speaker 1: and radio antenna so much that it opted to keep
Speaker 1: and care for the tower indefinitely. In nineteen o three,
Speaker 1: just six short years before the tower was set to
Speaker 1: be demolished, Eiffel doubled down on his invitations to scientists
Speaker 1: to host brainy discussions and conduct research from within the
Speaker 1: towers little known apartment. The apartment, about a thousand feet
Speaker 1: or three ds off the ground, was outfitted with cozy rugs, chairs,
Speaker 1: and other comforts, but it also had adjacent spaces to
Speaker 1: serve as many laboratories. From this bird level apartment, the
Speaker 1: atmosphere was measured, the stars and planets were observed, and
Speaker 1: the bounds of physics were explored by some of the
Speaker 1: greatest minds of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century,
Speaker 1: and in a French captain experimented with wireless broadcast signals,
Speaker 1: eventually sending signals as far as North America. The Eiffel
Speaker 1: Tower and its scientific purpose became too important to the
Speaker 1: French government to be torn down. Just a few years later,
Speaker 1: the tower would play a vital role in World War One,
Speaker 1: when the French military used the our list communicators to
Speaker 1: transmit to ships in the Atlantic Ocean. Today, the Eiffel
Speaker 1: Tower receives about seven million visitors each year, and those
Speaker 1: who purchase a ticket to the top of the tower
Speaker 1: can look for a window at the apartment where Thomas
Speaker 1: Edison once conversed with Eiffel and other invitation only guests.
Speaker 1: For the most part, the apartment's original appearance has been preserved.
Speaker 1: There's a pholstered furniture, a grand piano, and burnished web
Speaker 1: cabinets against a backdrop of patterned wallpaper. The apartment's laboratory
Speaker 1: areas still exhibits some of their original scientific equipment, and
Speaker 1: there's an observatory above the apartment that's not open to
Speaker 1: public viewing. And although you can't stay in the original
Speaker 1: apartment at the Eiffel Tower, there's now another option. The
Speaker 1: Gustav Eiffel Reception Room, situated at a hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: seven feet or fifty seven meters off the ground, is
Speaker 1: open for event rental for a starting fee of seventy
Speaker 1: pounds sterling, which is about ten thousand dollars. Today's episode
Speaker 1: was written by Laurel d and produced by Tyler Clang.
Speaker 1: The brain Stuff is a production of I Heart Radio's
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. For more in this and lots of
Speaker 1: other topics that aren't at all Tall Tales, visit our
Speaker 1: home planet, how stuff works dot com, and for more
Speaker 1: podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.