The exposition was held to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Storming of the Bastille, which marked the beginning of French Revolution, and was also seen as a way to stimulate the economy and pull France out of an economic recession.

[2] The countries that officially participated in the exposition were Andorra, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, the United States, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Hawaii, Honduras, India, Japan, Morocco, Mexico, Monaco, Nicaragua, Norway, Paraguay, Persia, Saint-Martin, El Salvador, Serbia, Siam, the South African Republic, Switzerland, Uruguay and Venezuela.

The boycotting nations were Germany, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia and Sweden.

They included Germany and Alsace-Lorraine, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Brazil, China, Denmark, Egypt, Spain, the United Kingdom and its colonies, Haiti, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Peru, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Finland and Sweden.

The main site was on Champs de Mars on the Left Bank, which had been the parade ground of the Ecole Militaire, and had been occupied by the 1878 Universal Exposition.

This section featured a large assortment of outdoor restaurants and cafes with foods from Indochina, North Africa, and other cuisines from around the world.

[7] This colonial section of the exposition was linked to the Champs de Mars site by a corridor of pavilions along the left Bank.

The major ceremonial entrance was located at Les Invalides consisting of two tall pylons with colorful ornament, like giant candelabras.

[9] The construction lasted two years, two months and five days, and involved five hundred workers, who assembled eighteen thousand iron pieces, each of five meters and carefully numbered, which had been made at a factory in Levallois-Perret, a Paris suburb.

Speaking of the tower construction workers, the son-in-law of Eiffel, declared, "no soldier on the battle field deserved better mention than these humble toilers, who, will never go down in history."

[9] A second monumental building on the site was the Galerie des machines, by the architect Ferdinand Dutert and engineer Victor Contamin, which had originally been built for the 1878 Universal Exposition.

The Gallery of Machines used a system of hinged arches (like a series of bridge spans placed not end-to-end but parallel) made of steel or iron.

Gustave Eiffel developed a series of houses with roof and walls of galvanised steel, and wooden interiors, which could be rapidly put together or taken apart, largely for use in French colony of Indochina.

Both buildings had modern iron frames abundance of glass, but were completely covered with colorful ceramic tiles and sculpted decoration.

Today, it houses over 250,000 books and an ethnographic museum, and stands as a tribute to the man it is named after who led the movement to abolish slavery in Martinique.

The exposition featured numerous fountains and reflecting pools, particularly in the mall that ran between the Eiffel Tower and the Palace of Machines.

Although he had also signed a petition, along with other prominent writers and artists, that denounced the Eiffel Tower as an atrocity, he agreed to design a series of houses to illustrate the history of human habitation.

The houses, separated by gardens, were placed close to the Eiffel Tower on a narrow strip of land along Quai D'Orsay and the banks of the Seine.

The architect Hector Guimard, then just twenty-two years old, built his first two buildings for the exposition; The cafe-restaurant Au Grand Neptune at 148 Quai Louis-Bleriot (Paris 16th arrondissement), and a small Pavillon of Electricity for an electrician named Ferdinand de Boyéres, located just outside the exposition site at avenue de Suffren.

In the first place, for its buildings, especially the Eiffel tower and the Machinery Hall; in the second place, for its Colonial Exhibition, which for the first time brings vividly to the appreciation of the Frenchmen that they are masters of lands beyond the sea; thirdly, it will be remembered for its great collection of war material, the most absorbing subject now-a-days, unfortunately, to governments if not to individuals; and fourthly, it will be remembered, and with good cause by many, for the extraordinary manner in which South American countries are represented.The exposition itself included several large theatres for concerts and spectacles, including one for the dancers of Les Follies Parisiens.

[8] Outside the exposition, other theatres and venues presented a range of spectacles including Buffalo Bill Cody and his Wild West Show, with the sharpshooter Annie Oakley.

Some of the locomotives used on this line later saw service on the Chemins de fer du Calvados[20] and the Diégo Suarez Decauville railway.

He also ascended to the viewing platform of the Eiffel Tower, where he was met by a group of Sioux Indians who were at the exposition to perform in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.

[22] Other prominent visitors included the Shah of Persia Nasereddin Shah, Prince of Wales (the future Edward VII) and his wife, Princess Alexandra; artists Antoni Gaudi, James McNeill Whistler, Edvard Munch, Rosa Bonheur and Paul Gauguin; U.S. journalist and diplomat Whitelaw Reid; author Henry James; Filipino patriots José Rizal and Marcelo H. del Pilar;[24] and inventor Nikola Tesla.

[25] The Mexican pavilion featured a model of an exotic (for Europeans) Aztec temple, a "combination of archeology, history, architecture, and technology.

Today, it houses over 250,000 books and an ethnographic museum, and stands as a tribute to the man it is named after who led the movement to abolish slavery in Martinique.