Was the Statue of Liberty dedicated before the Eiffel Tower opened?
Yes. The Statue of Liberty (dedicated 1886) came 3 years before the Eiffel Tower (opened 1889).
The Statue of Liberty was dedicated three years before the Eiffel Tower opened.
The duel opens first in a practice round of ten; practice never changes your daily streak.
Why it surprises
The Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower are linked more closely than they look: Gustave Eiffel’s company engineered the iron framework that holds up the statue’s copper skin. Since the tower is Eiffel’s most famous work, it is easy to assume it came first. It did not. New York dedicated the Statue of Liberty on 28 October 1886, while the Eiffel Tower’s inauguration followed on 31 March 1889, and the tower welcomed its first visitors that year, during the World’s Fair in Paris. So the statue came about three years before the tower. Both were the work of the same engineering firm within a few years, which is one reason the order is easy to mix up. This duel compares the statue’s dedication with the tower’s opening year.
Sources for this explanation
- U.S. National Park Service: nps.gov, checked 25 October 2026
- Société d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (SETE): toureiffel.paris, checked 24 October 2026
- Bureau International des Expositions: expo.bie-paris.org, checked 24 October 2026
Where the numbers come from
Each value was checked against two independent sources, quoted on its page. Details: Statue of Liberty and Eiffel Tower.
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