Don't Fall For It

CHAPTER 2How to Sell Anything

There are some frauds so well conducted that it would be stupidity not to be deceived by them.

—Charles Cotton

The Eiffel Tower is one of the most recognizable and well-trafficked monuments in the world. Each year, it’s estimated well over six million visitors wait in long lines to experience this gorgeous landmark. It may be hard to believe, but when it was built the tower was subject to ridicule and was only supposed to stand for 20 years before being disassembled.

Gustave Eiffel designed his namesake tower for the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris. No one had ever built a structure so tall before so the fact that it was erected in just over two years is a technical feat that was unparalleled at the time. Naysayers told Eiffel the tower would be impossible to build. The wind would make it too dangerous for people to ascend to such heights and the government wasn’t keen on spending an estimated $1 million on the project. His contract stipulated that the tower would be allowed to stand for 20 years to be able to earn enough of a profit to make it worthwhile, at which point the erector set–looking structure would be taken down piece by piece.

The engineering and construction involved required an incredible amount of precision. The iron plates used to build the tower would have stretched 43 miles long if they were laid end-to-end and called for over seven million holes to be drilled into them. The iron used to construct the tower weighed over 7,000 tons ...