city: paris
where andre the giant died
from andre the giant posted in pro wrestling by nevereatshreddedwheat
On January 27, 1993, while he was in his home country of France to attend his father’s funeral, André Roussimoff, better known as Andre the Giant, died of a heart attack at the age of 46 in the room where he was staying at the Hotel de La Trémoille.
view full location details...bataclan theatre
from terrorism posted in history by prof_improbable
Built in 1864 and opened in 1865, the Bataclan is a café-concert theatre built in the Chinoiserie (European version of Chinese) style. With historical appearances by notable figures as diverse as Buffalo Bill Cody and Edith Piaf, the Bataclan has been hosting rock acts since the 1970s.
The theatre was the scene of a coordinated terrorist attacks on Nov. 13, 2015, killing 89 people and injuring over 200. The members of the band that evening, Eagles of Death Metal, were interviewed after the attack for Vice.
view full location details...les invalides
from napoleon posted in history by prof_improbable
The dome of Les Invalides was a direct influence on the U.S. Capitol dome, after the designer Thomas U. Walter visited here and was impressed by it.
view full location details...les invalides
from napoleon posted in history by prof_improbable
Les Invalides, or more officially known as L'Hôtel national des Invalides (French for "The National Residence of the Invalids"), is a series of museums and crypts dedicated to French military history.
Under the central dome of the structure is the tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821), whose remains were repatriated here in 1840, and then placed in their present tomb (made of red quartzite and resting on a green granite base) in 1861.
view full location details...hemingway bar, ritz hotel
from ernest hemingway posted in literature by pete_nice
Ernest "Pappa" Hemingway roamed the streets of Paris in the 1920s with other ex-pat writers like Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ford Maddox Ford- but he could only afford to drink at the Ritz Hotel on the Place Vendôme once a week. After a couple of best-sellers, he had a bit more spending money, but by that time the Germans had decided to borrow France for awhile.
Big Pappa didn't appreciate that, so when D-Day came he decided to play soldier as a war correspondent for Collier's magazine. By most accounts, he did a pretty good job- rounding up a gang of Resistance fighters and outfitting them, then drinking at cafés and wine cellars while dodging German snipers on the way to Paris. Their mission: to liberate the Ritz.
On August 25, 1944, while Gen. Jacques Leclerc's 2nd French Armored Division and a number of American units liberated Paris, Hemingway and his band of freedom fighters liberated the Ritz.
Read the article here.
view full location details...