Gustave Eiffel

Graduates from the Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, specializing in chemistry. His first major project: the Bordeaux railway bridge. He goes on to build bridges across France, Portugal, and Vietnam. The Garabit Viaduct, 122 meters above the Truyere river in southern France, makes him famous. It holds the world record for arch height.

Designs the internal iron framework for the Statue of Liberty in New York. Frederic Auguste Bartholdi sculpts the exterior. Eiffel's skeleton of iron pylons and crossbeams allows the copper skin to stand independently and flex in the wind. The statue is assembled in Paris first, then disassembled and shipped in 350 crates.

The Eiffel Tower opens for the 1889 Universal Exposition. 300 meters tall. 18,038 iron pieces. 2.5 million rivets. Built in 2 years, 2 months, and 5 days. A petition signed by 300 artists and writers calls it "a gigantic black factory chimney." Guy de Maupassant supposedly eats lunch in it because it's the only place in Paris where he can't see it.

Convicted in the Panama Canal scandal. He'd been hired as a consulting engineer by Ferdinand de Lesseps but the project collapsed amid massive corruption. Eiffel's conviction is overturned on appeal. His reputation is damaged but his tower keeps standing. He builds a laboratory on its third floor and spends his final decades studying aerodynamics and meteorology.

Dies in Paris at 91 while listening to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. His tower, built to last 20 years and scheduled for demolition in 1909, survives because it's too useful as a radio antenna. It's now the most-visited paid monument in the world.