15 Jan Entertaining Facts About the Pentagon
Everyone has an idea 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.
You may not know much about it if you’ve never read about the building or taken a tour. It’s an excellent structure, and the following are some interesting, fun facts.
As a reference point, you could take all of the office space in the Empire State Building times two, and that would give you an idea of the Pentagon’s capacity. That’s a lot of offices, people!
It has over 17 miles of hallways, but you can literally walk between the furthest points in the building in a relatively quick time frame by making use of the inner courtyard.
The concrete for the building was made, in part, from sand that was taken from the Potomac River.
Although 23,000 employees work there each day, it was built to be able to house 40,000 employees and can settle 10,000 cars. (Huge, right?!).
It has numerous bathrooms! During its building and construction, segregation was still a pretty famous issue, so the building plan included separate bathrooms for blacks and whites. Nevertheless, President Roosevelt passed a law banning discrimination for employees that worked for the government. Due to that, the bathrooms have been non-segregated since the building first opened its doors.
Before the building was done, employees were already working in office space that was completed, while construction continued what remained to be done.
The vision for the premises took shape at a time when the United States military staff were spread out, working in 17 different buildings. The idea was to build a building that would bring all of the divisions of the military to one place.
The building’s intriguing shape choice is because of the fact that it was initially going to be built on a section of land that once came from General Robert E. Lee. This land was about in the shape of a pentagon. However, plans changed when it was decided that they didn’t prefer to build that structure instantly adjacent to Arlington National Cemetery. And even though they ultimately chose another site, they proceeded with the original building design.
Surprisingly, 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 released to the public on September 11, 2008. The memorial features a bench for every 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 information aside, the Pentagon stands as a monument to the American military. We honor those who serve and sacrifice to protect the freedoms that we enjoy here in this land. It is an advantage for us to help in transporting the service men and women of our country with our bus rental Maine, whether that’s in assisting with a military ball or getting troops to the airport. Motorcoaches are there to provide a solution if there’s a military transportation need! Call us today!
(And, if you wish to learn more about the Pentagon and learn more in-depth details about the things tackled in this article, take a look at the sites we got our relevant 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!
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