00:05This year, an icon turns 140, the world most famous monument that almost never happened.
00:14The Statue of Liberty. Towering over 300 feet tall, millions visit every year to wonder at
00:23her immense scale and profound meaning. The torch is one of the favorite symbols of the nation.
00:30The Dream of Liberty. But despite her fame, few people know her true story.
00:37It all started in the second half of the 90th century, at a time when freedom in America
00:44was far from certain. It was a gift to express the admiration of the French people for the
00:53American Republic. The idea sparked in the early 1870s, in the mind of an ambitious young French
00:59sculpture, August Bartholdi. Most people thought that what he wanted to do was impossible.
01:05It was crazy. And he did it anyway. But big dreams don't come easily.
01:13Americans didn't build monuments. We're going to build railroads, houses, factories.
01:19What does this guy want? It took Bartholdi decades of persuasion and clever innovation,
01:26helped by engineer Gustave Eiffel to create the tallest statue of his time.
01:31The French would pay for the statue itself, and the Americans would pay for the pedestal.
01:37But they just were having a hard time coming up with the money to pay for it.
01:44Everything would have stopped, had it not been for Joseph Pulitzer's remarkable crowdfunding campaign.
01:50The rich people of New York could easily pay for this statue, but they don't believe in liberty.
01:57Despite all the difficulties, the statue finally stood proudly at the entrance to the harbor.
02:02It became a symbol of hope for all who risked everything to reach America.
02:08The idea of a city and a country that welcomes people from other shores and offers them a better life
02:17than the one they left behind
02:19is, for me, immensely powerful and immensely moving.
02:24It's the story of my own family.
02:47It's the story of Macek
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