Which came first, the Eiffel Tower or the telephone?

the telephone came first, by 13 years. Bell was granted US patent 174,465.

Side by side

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.

the telephone

Bell's patent was granted on 7 March 1876 and he made the famous call to Watson three days later. Elisha Gray filed a caveat for a similar device on the same day in February that Bell filed his application, and the priority dispute has never entirely gone away. Antonio Meucci had demonstrated a working voice telegraph in New York in 1860 but could not afford to renew his caveat.