Gustave Eiffel: French engineer who began skyscraper frenzy

PARIS, France — French engineer and entrepreneur Gustave Eiffel will forever be remembered for building the much-loved tower that has dominated the Paris skyline for over a century.

But the father of the Eiffel Tower also designed hundreds of other landmarks across the globe, and even patented a system of underwater "bridges" to run under the Channel.

Here are five things to know about the engineer and inventor, who died 100 years ago on December 27, 1923, at the age of 91.

Bonickhausen Tower?

Eiffel designed the tower that would bear his name for the World Fair in Paris in 1889.

But the tower, which came to symbolize France, could very easily have had a German name.

Eiffel, who had German roots, was born Alexandre Gustave Bonickhausen dit Eiffel in 1832 in Dijon but he dropped the German part of his surname after the 1870 Franco-Prussian war, fearing it could damage his career.

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Erected in record time, the 7,000-ton, 300-meter "Iron Lady" was the tallest human-made structure in the world for four decades.

Commenting on its place in history, the Bureau International d'Expositions, which organizes World Expos, says it "marked the pinnacle of iron architecture, and set the pace for the skyscraper frenzy that would follow in the 20th century."

Projects on five continents

The Tower came towards the end of Eiffel's career, during which he built around 500 structures across five continents.

He built his reputation as a builder of railway bridges but also used his metal wizardry to build the Pest railway station in Hungary, lighthouses in Finland and Madagascar, the structure of the Saigon Central Post Office in Ho Chi Minh City, and the iron framework of the Statue of Liberty in New York.

He also designed portable bridges, delivered around the world in kits.

Channel tunnel 100 years early

Never short of ideas, Eiffel proposed to build what he described as a bridge under the Channel to link France with Britain.

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His 1890 design envisaged a system of concrete-coated metal tubes built on supports resting on the sea bed.

The project