Engineers began constructing the Mont Cenis Tunnel through the Alps between France and Italy, utilizing early pneumatic drills and massive gunpowder blasting operations. This audacious project was designed to link the rail networks of France and Italy, requiring excavation through miles of solid alpine rock. The immense scale of the blasting operations resulted in numerous cave-ins and technical innovations that redefined alpine transit.

The pierce of the Alps via explosive power was celebrated by European poets as a triumph of human unified progress over ancient geographical boundaries. It fostered an era of transit poetry, where writers marvelled at how explosives had dismantled the sublime terrors of the alpine landscape.