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Which came first, the car or the Eiffel Tower?

Which came first, the car or the Eiffel Tower?
the car
1886 — 3 years before the Eiffel Tower

the car came first, by 3 years. Karl Benz patented the Motorwagen.

Side by side

the car the Eiffel Tower
Year 1886 1889
Date 1886-01-29 1889-03-31
Category invention landmark
What happened Karl Benz patented the Motorwagen. The tower opened for the Paris Exposition Universelle.

the car

Benz's patent of 29 January 1886 is the usual date for the first practical petrol car. The vehicle's commercial breakthrough came from his wife: in 1888 Bertha Benz drove 106 km to Pforzheim without telling him, fixing the fuel line with a hatpin and the ignition with a garter on the way, and the resulting publicity sold the machine. Ford did not exist until 1903 and the Model T not until 1908.

the Eiffel Tower

Built for the 1889 World's Fair and intended to be dismantled after twenty years, the Eiffel Tower survived because it turned out to be useful as a radio antenna. It was the tallest structure in the world until the Chrysler Building in 1930. It opened in the same year Nintendo was founded, and two and a half years after the Statue of Liberty it is often assumed to predate.

Common questions

Which came first, the car or the Eiffel Tower?
the car, by 3 years — 1886 against 1889.
When did the car start?
1886. Karl Benz patented the Motorwagen.
When did the Eiffel Tower start?
1889. The tower opened for the Paris Exposition Universelle.

Related pages

Sources

  1. Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History — Smithsonian Institution
  2. Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (CC0 1.0)

How these figures are compiled and checked