The Eiffel Tower was meant to be torn down after 20 years.
It was built as the entrance to the 1889 World's Fair with a permit that expired in 1909, and many Parisian artists called it a monstrosity. It was saved because it turned out to be a perfect antenna for the new science of radio.
Why is this true?
Radio transmissions from the tower jammed German communications during the First World War. Today it is the most visited paid monument in the world.
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More about history
History keeps producing facts that ruin your sense of time. A war shorter than a lunch break, an empire that overlaps with the invention of the fax machine, a queen who lived closer to the Moon landing than to the pyramids. The entries here favour events with solid documentation, and each one explains the context that makes the surprise make sense rather than leaving it as a bare curiosity.