Heads Up

Back in 1889, many countries — Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, and Sweden — RSVP’d with a hard pass to their invitation to the Universal Exposition in France that year. Being monarchies, they didn’t want to participate in a world’s fair celebrating the anniversary of separating royals from their heads. That didn’t deter France from constructing a replica of the infamous Bastille prison for the Expo. Once they were inside, visitors were treated to a dank labyrinth of dungeons, instruments of torture, and at designated times, the staged drama of a prisoner's escape from the notorious lockup that was stormed on July 14, 1789.