Place du Trocadero

This guide to Place du Trocadero opens at six in the morning on June 23, 1940, when Adolf Hitler stepped onto this brand-new esplanade for his only visit to Paris and posed for a photograph with the Eiffel Tower behind him. It follows the platform back to the 1937 World's Fair that built it in place of a demolished Moorish palace, then forward eight years to another gathering the same wings once hosted. Look toward the tower and notice how this same sightline has served very different purposes.