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© Provided by Euronews SA It is to Paris what Big Ben is to London and the Colosseum is to Rome - and on Sunday the 300 metre metal giant celebrates its 130th birthday. More than seven million people visit the Eiffel Tower each year which, despite its age, remains in rude health. But, when it was built in 1887 by Gustave Eiffel for that year's Universal Exhibition, not everyone took a shine to the metal monolith. One group of intellectuals that included Emile Zola and Guy de Maupassant published a letter in the newspaper Le Temps. In it they protested against the building of the "useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower" and dismissed it as an "odious column of sheet metal with bolts." It was built by Gustave Eiffel for the Universal Exhibition and he used the third floor, both as an office and an apartment for his family. Relatives of Eiffel, who had had an office and apartment on the third floor, used to put it good use however. Savin Yeatman-Eiffel re...

On the day that their talks in Hanoi collapsed last month, U.S. President Donald Trump handed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a piece of paper that included a blunt call for the transfer of Pyongyang's nuclear weapons and bomb fuel to the United States, according to the document seen by Reuters. Trump gave Kim both Korean and English-language versions of the U.S. position at Hanoi's Metropole hotel on Feb. 28, according to a source familiar with the discussions, speaking on condition of anonymity. It was the first time that Trump himself had explicitly defined what he meant by denuclearization directly to Kim, the source said. A lunch between the two leaders was canceled the same day. While neither side has presented a complete account of why the summit collapsed, the document may help explain it. The document's existence was first mentioned by White House national security adviser John Bolton in television interviews he gave after the two-day summit. Bolton did not...

Israeli researchers discovered the world’s longest salt cave: Malham Cave in the Dead Sea’s Mount Sodom area, measuring 10 kilometers long. An international expedition led by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Cave Research Center (CRC), Israel Cave Explorers Club and Bulgaria’s Sofia Speleo Club – along with 80 cavers from nine countries – recently completed mapping the cave.  “Thirty years ago, when we surveyed Malham, we used tape measures and compasses,” explained Prof. Amos Frumkin, director of the CRC at Hebrew University’s Institute of Earth Sciences. “Now, we have laser technology that beams measurements right to our iPhones.”  This technology helped the team to determine the cave’s record-breaking, double-digit length. Malham was initially discovered by the CRC back in the 1980’s. Further CRC expeditions surveyed Mount Sodom and found more than 100 different salt caves inside, the longest of which measured 5,685 meters. Subsequent carbon-14 tests dated th...

Manchester United has appointed Ole Gunnar Solskjaer as the club’s permanent manager on a three-year contract on Thursday, following a highly successful caretaker spell in charge. The Norwegian has inspired a revival of United’s fortunes since taking over from the sacked Jose Mourinho in December, winning 14 of his 19 games and leading the Red Devils to the quarter-finals of the Champions League Solskjaer, who scored 126 goals in 366 appearances for United, was already a hero to fans as the man who scored the stoppage-time winner in the 1999 Champions League final to complete the treble. “From the first day I arrived, I felt at home at this special club,” Solskjaer said in a statement on the club’s website. “It was an honour to be a Manchester United player, and then to start my coaching career here. “The last few months have been a fantastic experience and I want to thank all of the coaches, players and staff for the work we’ve done so far. “This is the job that I always d...

In the 1930s, American pilot Amelia Earhart set speed and distance records for airplane flight. Today, Earhart is remembered as an adventurous pioneer during the early days of long-distance aviation. EARLY YEARS Earhart was born in Atchison, Kansas, in 1897. She worked as a military nurse in Canada during World War I (1914-1918). In 1920, Earhart moved to California and began taking flying lessons. She bought her first airplane at the age of 24. In 1928, two American pilots invited Earhart to join them as a passenger on a flight across the Atlantic Ocean. The trip made Earhart famous. She was the first woman in history to cross the Atlantic by air! Earhart tasted the thrill of long-distance flight, and she wanted more. EARHART'S FLIGHT ACHIEVEMENTS In 1932, Earhart became the first woman to fly solo (alone) across the Atlantic Ocean. She made the trip in 13 hours and 30 minutes, setting a new speed record for the flight. For her achievement, Earhart won special honors fr...

The Court of Appeal in Abuja on Wednesday granted permission to the Peoples Democratic Party and its presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, to serve their petition challenging the outcome of the February 23, 2019 election, on President Muhammadu Buhari through substituted means. A three-man bench which sat in a “pre-hearing session” of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, granted the request contained in the petitioners’ ex parte application that Buhari, who is the second respondent to the petition, be served through any senior official or an officer of the APC at the party’s secretariat in Abuja. Granting the ex parte application, Justice Abdu Aboki, who led the panel and delivered the lead ruling, said “it is in the interest of justice” to grant the prayers in the petitioners’ application. The petitioners’ lead counsel, Chief Chris Uche (SAN), had earlier moved the application. The petitioners had on March 18, 2019, filed their case to challenge the Independ...

“Remember the Alamo!” is a famous battle cry from the old West. Who wanted to remember the Alamo and why? The Alamo is an old mission (church compound) in San Antonio, Texas. Spanish priests built it from sun-dried bricks, called adobe, in the early 1700s. High walls defended the mission. It later became a fortress. In 1836, a bloody battle was fought at the Alamo. Texan forces fought bravely against the Mexican army, but many Texans died. At that time, Texas was part of Mexico. Many Texans wanted to make Texas an independent country. “Remember the Alamo!” became a battle cry for Texas in its war of independence from Mexico. TEXAS REVOLTS! In the fall of 1835, the people of Texas decided they no longer wanted to be a part of Mexico. Texans were unhappy with the Mexican government. The Texans rebelled and gathered an army. Mexican president and general Antonio López de Santa Anna wanted to stop the revolt. In February 1836, he took more than 2,000 of his soldiers to San Antonio. A...