Statue of Liberty: Facts And History

13 Things you don’t know about the Statue of Liberty

• The Statue of Liberty is located on Liberty Island in the New York Harbor, USA.
• The Statue of Liberty was built by French sculptor Auguste Bartholdi.
• The Statue of Liberty commemorates the American Declaration of Independence and was a gift from the people of France.
• This grand statue is around 46 metres in height and weighs about 204,100 kilograms.
• Thousands of workers worked on the statue ten hour days, seven days a week for nine years.
• The statue was finally finished in 1884 in form of 350 individual pieces.
• These pieces were then packed in 214 crates and sent to New York from France, where these pieces were reassembled to form the complete statue.
• The Statue of Liberty was officially accepted by the President of the United States on October 28th, 1886.
• Visitors have to climb 354 stairs to reach the Statue of Liberty. There are 25 windows in Lady Liberty’s crown to allow the visitors to have a panoramic view of the vicinity.
• The seven spikes on the Statue of Liberty’s crown represent either the seven oceans or the seven continents.
• The statue is made of copper and was initially bronze in colour, but it has now turned green because of oxidation (a chemical reaction between metal and water) from the evaporation of the seawater around it.
• The statue is said to represent Libertas, the Roman goddess of liberty. She holds a torch and a tabula ansata (tablet) on which 4th July, 1776, the date and year of the American Declaration of Independence, is inscribed.
• The official name of the Statue of Liberty is ‘Liberty Enlightening the World’.