The Statue of Liberty arrived this day in history 1885 to the United States of America. In order to get the Statue of Liberty to the United States the Statue was broken down into 350 individual pieces and packed in 214 crates. Lady Liberty was finished in France in 1884 and arrived in New York Harbor June 17, 1885 aboard the French vessel “Isere”.
The Statue of Liberty was a joint effort between France and the United States, intended to commemorate the lasting friendship between the people of the two nations. The French sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi created the statue itself out of sheets of hammered copper, while Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel, the man behind the Eiffel Tower, designed the statue’s steel framework.
The Statue of Liberty was given to the United States and was to be placed atop an American-designed granite pedestal in the star-shaped walls of Fort Wood. Over the next four months, workers reassembled the statue and mounted it on the pedestal; its height reached 305 feet (or 93 meters), including the pedestal. On October 28, 1886, President Grover Cleveland officially dedicated the Statue of Liberty in front of thousands of spectators.
Until 1901, the Statue of Liberty was the responsibility of the United States Lighthouse Board. In 1901, the war department took control of the Statue of Liberty. On October 15th, 1924 a Presidential Proclamation declared Fort Wood and the Statue of Liberty a National Monument. In 1933, The National Monument was placed in care of the National Park Service and a few years later the jurisdiction of the Monument would include all of Bedloe’s Island. By 1956, the island’s name changed to Liberty Island.
Ellis Island was transferred into the National Park Service in 1965 and became part of the Statue of Liberty Monument. President Ronald Reagan wanted to restore the Statue of Liberty in 1982. Fundraising for an $87 million-dollar restoration of the Statue of Liberty would take place between the National Park Service and Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, Inc. In 1984, the United Nations declared the Statue of Liberty as a World Heritage Site, and the completion of the restoration of the Statue was completed on July 5th, 1986, which celebrated her centennial.
Total overall height from the base of the pedestal foundation to the tip of the torch is 305 feet, 6 inches. Height of the Statue from her heel to the top of her head is 111 feet, 6 inches. Total weight of the Statue of Liberty is 225 tons (450,000 pounds). During the restoration completed in 1986, the new torch was carefully covered with thin sheets of 24k gold.
There are seven rays on her crown, one for each of the seven continents, each measuring up to 9 feet in length and weighing as much as 150 pounds. The face on the Statue of Liberty measures more than 8 feet tall. A tablet held in her left hand measures 23' 7" tall and 13' 7" wide inscribed with the date JULY IV MDCCLXXVI (July 4, 1776).
There are 154 steps from the pedestal to the head of the Statue of Liberty.
The exterior copper covering of the Statue of Liberty is 3/32 of an inch thick (less than the thickness of two pennies) and the light green color (called a patina) is the result of natural weathering of the copper
Today, the Statue of Liberty remains an enduring symbol of freedom and democracy, as well as one of the world’s most recognizable landmarks.
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