The Eiffel Tower opened in spring 1889, and in June van Gogh painted The Starry Night at the Saint-Rémy asylum.
He himself thought it a failure.
The events
- Eiffel Tower1889 · Paris. Gustave Eiffel's 300-metre tower was built for the 1889 World's Fair, marking the centenary of the Revolution. It was due to be dismantled after 20 years but was saved by its use as a radio antenna.
- Van Gogh's The Starry Night1889 · Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Vincent van Gogh painted The Starry Night in June 1889 at the asylum of Saint-Rémy, where he had admitted himself. He considered it a failure; today it hangs in New York's Museum of Modern Art.
More amazing facts
- 1869 1869: in March Mendeleev presented his periodic table, and in November the Suez Canal opened.
- 1883 The last quagga died at Amsterdam Zoo on 12 August 1883 — two weeks before Krakatoa's catastrophic eruption.
- 1893 · 1918 Women in New Zealand have voted in parliamentary elections since 1893, a quarter of a century before those in Britain, Germany or Russia.
- 1895 In 1895 Popov demonstrated a radio receiver in St Petersburg, and the Lumière brothers held the first paid film screening in Paris.
- 1903 · 1961 · 1969 Just 58 years separate the Wright brothers' first flight from Gagarin's, and 66 from the Moon landing — some who saw the first airplanes lived to see the Moon.
- 1908 1908: the Tunguska blast flattened 2,000 km² of Siberian forest, and the Messina earthquake killed some 80,000 people.