10 000 tons, 1 667 steps, 2 and a half million rivets, 300 light bulbs since the Universal Exhibition of 1889, the Eiffel Tower dominates Paris from the slender. The magazine "Roots and Wings" celebrates the 120 years in its own way with stories full of anecdotes and archival images often moving. Back in 1889, a period vibrant invented the four-stroke engine, the telephone, typewriter and electric light. On a military ground operation in Paris, the Champs de Mars, we are preparing to build the Universal Exhibition of the centenary of the French Revolution. An event whose importance deserves it deploys ingenuity and daring. What better way to remember the greatness of France an iron tower 300 meters high, designed by Gustave Eiffel some? The man is not the first attempt. In 1879, he participated in the expansion of the first Paris department store, Le Bon Marché. Three years before the tower, he designed the metal frame of the Statue of Liberty in New York. In 1884, he constructed the bridge in Auvergne Garabit, real laboratory "has led to experiment with construction techniques of the future turn" according to historian Patricia Vergne-Roches.  On 26 January 1887, therefore, starts the project by Mr. Eiffel. Foundations are dug by hand, riveted the pieces to several hundred meters above the ground. This little feat n'impressionne his detractors including Maupassant complains that "a disgraceful skeleton" and the architect Garnier protesting against the "unnecessary Tour. Against wind and tide, the arrow opens its iron stairs to the public on 15 May 1889. She meets a phenomenal success. It takes only a few years. Past fashion, the tower must be destroyed in accordance with the contract which provided a grant of twenty years. But the enterprising Eiffel is struggling to prove its worth installing on top of laboratories (weather, physics, astronomy) and launching the first experiments in wireless transmission, the TSF, which in 1914-1918 will intercept German messages the one who helped unmask Mata Hari. During the Second World War, Hitler ordered the destruction of this place of strategic communication, von Choltitz saved by refusing to execute the order of the Führer. Thus the work of a visionary active scientist became the latest today is visited annually by millions of fans in September.