An excellent history of the story of the 1889 Paris Exposition Universelle, told by narrating the separate histories of Gustav Eiffel; Paul Gauguin and Vincent Van Gogh; Thomas Edison; James Gordon Bennett (publisher of the NY Herald and what would become the International Herald-Tribune); and both Buffalo Bill Cody and Annie Oakley. The history of all would be effected by the fair -- with Edison, Eiffel and Cody's Wild West Show being major hits. Edison and William Cody would again be major fixtures four years later at Chicago's World's Fair.

Eiffel's design for the tower was initially denigrated by many artists and others in Paris, then the center of art. Structurally it was a major coup for Eiffel, already famous for his ironwork bridges in France and overseas. The tower was partly pre-fabricated in Paris but final rivets were placed with a tolerance of 1mm so that the weight of the structure would be well-distributed.

Eiffel was given a 20-year franchise for the private structure, one that made him rich by the end of the Exposition Universelle. But at the end of 20 years the tower was scheduled for demolition. The City of Paris commission in 1906 would decide, "If [the Eiffel Tower:] did not exist, one would probably not contemplate building it there, or even perhaps anywhere else; but it does exist." By World War I, it would become strategic in its use for radio signals -- and by World War II the symbol of France.