The World’s Fair was an event that happened every year, but some would say that the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 was the greatest one in history. The fair was a place where people could showcase their work to the public. More than 27 million people attended the Chicago fair that lasted from May to October of 1893.

New buildings were created to hold the event, and the fair was given the name the “White City” because all the buildings were painted white. The fair displayed music, art, inventions, and cultures from over 46 countries and featured several different areas of interest. In total, there were 65,000 exhibits. The different exhibits were broken up into categories like food, machinery, transportation, fine arts, and archeology.

Some of the famous inventions on display were the Ferris wheel (America’s answer to the Eiffel Tower), Hershey’s Chocolate, bicycles, Juicy Fruit Gum, canned soups, carrier pigeons, the dishwasher, spray paint, zippers, and pancake mix.

While the fair was filled with all kinds of fun things to see, the main event was the new sensation — electricity. Tesla took on the job of lighting up the entire fair and used 200,000 lightbulbs to do it. At night, the White City transformed into the “City of Light” and showcased the wonder of electricity. By using his Alternating Current to power the fair, Tesla showed the public how bright their future could be and how electricity could not just light up the fair, but the entire world.