26 Jun Entertaining Facts About the Pentagon
Everybody knows that the Pentagon is the home of the United States Department of Defense. All branches of the U.S. military are situated here, and the no nonsense, non-embellished concrete exterior conveys the feel of a fortress.
If you’ve never before read about the building or taken a tour, you may not learn much about it. It’s an impressive structure, and listed here are some interesting, fun facts.
For starters, it’s mammoth. Like, big. As a reference point, you could get all of the office space in the Empire State Building times two, and that would offer you an idea of the Pentagon’s capacity. That’s a good deal of offices, people!
It has over 17 miles of hallways, but you can in fact walk between the furthest points in the building in a relatively quick time frame by utilizing the inner courtyard.
The concrete for the building was made, in part, from sand that was taken from the Potomac River.
Even though 23,000 employees work there each day, it was built to be able to house 40,000 employees and can accommodate 10,000 cars. (Gigantic, right?!).
During its construction, segregation was still a pretty prominent issue, so the building plan included separate bathrooms for blacks and whites. Because of that, the bathrooms have been non-segregated since the building first opened its doors.
Before the building was finished, employees were already doing work in office space that was completed, while construction continued what remained to be done.
The vision for the structure took shape at a time when the United States military staff were expanded, working in 17 different buildings. The idea was to build a structure that would bring all of the divisions of the military to one place.
Once belonged to General Robert E. Lee, the building’s fascinating shape choice is due to the fact that it was originally going to be built on a portion of land that. This land was approximately in the shape of a pentagon. However, plans changed when it was decided that they didn’t prefer to build that structure immediately adjacent to Arlington National Cemetery. And even though they ultimately chose another site, they continued with the original building design.
Interestingly, the 9/11 attack on the building occurred precisely 60 years, to the day, from the date construction started on the building in 1941.
A memorial honoring those that were killed at the Pentagon on 9/11 was opened to the public on September 11, 2008. The memorial features a bench for each life that was lost at the Pentagon that day. Some benches point toward the structure, signifying those that were killed from inside the building, and others point away to memorialize the others that were aboard American Airlines Flight 77.
Every one of these details aside, the Pentagon stands as a monument to the American military. We commemorate those who sacrifice and serve to safeguard the freedoms that we enjoy here in this land. It is an advantage for us to assist in transporting the service men and women of our country, whether that’s in assisting with a military ball or getting troops to the airport. If there’s a military transportation need, motorcoaches are there to provide a solution! Call us today!
(And, if you would like to find out more about the Pentagon and find out more in-depth details about the things talked about in this article, take a look at the sites we got our information from. Additionally, it’s fun to watch the two minute educational clip on history.com’s site, too!).
http://www.history.com/news/9-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-pentagon.
http://www.history.com/topics/pentagon.
https://washington.org/DC-guide-to/pentagon-memorial.
And, to the members of the military … many thanks for serving our country!