Paris Facts and Trivia (Part 2 of 2)

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	Paris History Neighborhoods Sightseeing Restaurants, cafés & nightlife Festivals & events Entertainment Museums Visiting with kids Shopping Hotels Transportation Facts & trivia Additional resources				Paris Facts and Trivia (Part 2 of 2) More amusing tidbits about the City of Lights: You're not leaving that thing there, are you? You may be surprised to learn that the Eiffel Tower, erected for the Paris Exhibition of 1889, was only meant to stand for 20 years. As its end neared, designer Gustave Eiffel suggested to the military that it would make an excellent long-range radio tower. Contact was made with bases around Paris in 1903, and the installation of a permanent base in the tower in 1906 ensured its survival. Those Who Can-Can While reliefs in Egyptian tombs already show dancers in that "over the head" kicking position, the Can-Can is still the fervently claimed property of the French who, as far back as 1549, danced the Triori in South Brittany, with a similar high kicking move. Reported to be an amalgam of the polka and quadrille, the name was once interpreted as "scandal" (no explanation needed) or "edge", since it was always danced at the very front of the stage. First danced publicly around 1822, the "immoral" performances were soon shut down by the police. But after "les gendarmes" loosened up a little, the Can-Can became a staple of French music halls between 1830 and 1844, and it is still performed today. What Goes Up... The first human beings to take flight did so in Paris, in 1783, when the Marquis d'Arlandes rose majestically into the sky in a hot air balloon and managed to stay there for 20 minutes, on November 21. In the same year, Louis Sébastien Le Normand took two umbrellas, jumped out of a tall tree and survived. It wasn't quite like the complicated drawings Da Vinci had made of a parachute, hundreds of years before, but it was a work in progress... Two years later, in 1785, Jean-Pierre Blanchard attached a small basket to a parachute and dropped it from a hot air balloon —with a dog as the unwilling pilot. The dog survived. But it wasn't until October 22, 1797, that André-Jacques Garnerin climbed out of a hot air balloon and into a similar parachute and basket affair, and descended (successfully) on Paris. Of course, anything he can do, she can do at least as well: His wife became the first female to parachute, in 1799.
For Beginners Copyright © 2004 M. Feenstra, Den Haag. All rights reserved.