Background
The fair was held in the Prater in Vienna, and opened in the Rotunde on May 1. Companies of all 35 participating countries presented their state of the art products and inventions. The world exhibitions aimed to promote international trading relations and to propagate the technical and cultural progress.
Austria-Hungary aimed to present itself as a world leader and the equal of England and France, and had the intention to show the new Vienna (buildings of the Ringstrasse, parks). Unfortunately, the stock exchange crashed on May 9 (see Panic of 1873), and cholera plagued the city from July to September. Finally many guests visited the fair in October and November.
Read more about this topic: Vienna 1873 Chess Tournament
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—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
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