established for the newly created air force, and the navy, which had balked at coming into the Pentagon during the war, was ordered to move Although the new site was not pentagonal, the designers, led by California

The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense.

Land needed for the road network that would accompany the building included Queen City, a In the middle was a muddy five-acre pentagonal courtyard planted with a few scrubby trees.

Defense Robert McNamara established the National Military Command Center in 1962, just weeks before the high-stakes nuclear standoff between The headquarters was officially known as the New War Department Building in Arlington, but the officers and workers involved in constructing Others suggested a hospital for veterans. As the Vietnam War escalated during the 1960s, the Pentagon became a target of antiwar protests.

resolve, pledged to restore the building within one year of the attack, working around the clock and through holidays to get the job done.

Over time, as the trees and grass grew,

happenstances. Virginia Humanities, By March, the Vogel, S. The Pentagon. military strength. The plane struck the only portion of the Pentagon that had been renovated and was thus equipped with blast-resistant windows, The first secretary of defense, James Forrestal, moved into the building on September 22, 1947. Five hijackers, acting under a plan masterminded by al Qaeda operative Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, terrorists flew a hijacked passenger jet into the Pentagon, killing 184 people and seriously damaging the building but not shutting it down. He wanted a headquarters with four million square feet of office space—twice as much as the Empire State Building—that was big Despite a lack of finished plans, the work moved quickly.

21, 1967, march on the Pentagon. the terrorist group the Weather Underground exploded in a fourth-floor bathroom. the Pentagon Memorial on June 15, 2006. the first anniversary of the attack, all offices at the point of impact were restored and occupied by employees.

In Encyclopedia Virginia. comptroller office, and army budget offices. 30, 1942, at Somervell's insistence. The pace accelerated after Retrieved from http://www.EncyclopediaVirginia.org/Pentagon_The. at an exponential rate, but had run out of room for its 24,000 workers, who were scattered in seventeen buildings across Washington, D.C. Some of the protesters scuffled with military police in reducing casualties.

And given Somervell's demands for speedy completion, there was no time to change the design. Defense and serves as military headquarters for the United States. On September 11, 2001,

A new building constructed in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood (now home to the State Department) was deemed to be

Somervell, seeking more space

occasionally violent confrontations that continued long into the night but did not result in any fatalities.

the building had already nicknamed it the "pentagonal building." Ground was broken for
To construct the building, Somervell chose John McShain, a Philadelphia builder who was making a name constructing other landmarks in the At 9:37 a.m. the decades that followed, the Pentagon was a frequent target of antinuclear demonstrators who threw paint or animal blood on the steps and The odd-shaped plot, bound on five sides by roads, a railroad, and a On September 11, 2001, the Pentagon, along with the World Trade Center in New York City, was attacked by the al Qaeda terrorist network, led extensive upgrades to technical infrastructure, necessitated a building-wide renovation and overhaul. All of the plane's

The memorial was dedicated on September 11, 2008, the seventh anniversary of the attack, before an its iconic, five-sided shape, the Pentagon is one of the world's most recognizable buildings and it has come to serve as a symbol of American

Map it>>.

all military services. By September 2001, workers had completed renovations on the They coped with clouds of dust, miserable heat, and incredible noise.

became a race to repair the 400,000 square feet of damaged space in the building as quickly as possible. The ceiling-to-slab renovation plan In 1947 the Pentagon became home to the newly created National Military Establishment (which preceded the Department of Defense) and almost As the plans moved quickly and with approval up the chain of command to United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt, Somervell into World War II (1939–1945), the headquarters was constructed in just seventeen months. mail and goods for the Pentagon, lessening the dangers presented by truck bombs. by fugitive Saudi billionaire Osama bin Laden.

Headquarters was established for the newly created air force, and the navy, which had balked at coming into the Pentagon during the war, was ordered to move in. The Pentagon, located in Arlington, Virginia, is home to the Department of

Ground was broken for the new headquarters on September 11, 1941. the land. prepared to break ground on the site. structural improvements, and sprinkler systems. In July 1941, Brehon Burke Somervell, chief of army construction who would later head logistics operations during World War II, summoned his Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall moved into the building in November 1942,
The first secretary of defense, James Forrestal, moved into the building on September 22, 1947. A Publication of Virginia Foundation for the Humanitites, 145 Ednam Drive, Charlottesville, VA 22903-4629. construction, favored converting the building into an archive for government records. employees.

They chose a proposal to cover the two-acre site along the Vogel, Steve. 2011.

Washington because the White House needed additional space. No one was injured, though the bomb caused $75,000 damage. victims, considered hundreds of proposals submitted via a blind competition. In the 1950s, as Cold War tensions grew, the Pentagon became the focal point for command and control of America's nuclear fleet. The site Somervell had in mind was at the foot of Memorial Bridge, on ground that is now part of Arlington National Cemetery. first of the wedges. Though the building was less than half completed and workers were still driving piles, the first employees moved into the Pentagon on April READ_DATE.

Washington, D.C., and would have to be built on the other side of the Potomac River in war, but has fluctuated considerably over the years, numbering between 20,000 and 25,000 at the start of the twenty-first century. Plot this entry's geographic highlights on a map. Workers, fired with patriotic These years of turmoil and the general wear and tear that the building had experienced over its first fifty years, along with needs for

seized American Airlines Flight 77, which had departed Dulles International Airport at 8:20 that morning en route to Los Angeles.

many more critical decisions, from the Cold War and the Vietnam War (1961–1975) to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The largest and most famous was the October From the moment Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and department had been evicted from the ornate State, War, and Navy Building (now known as the Eisenhower Executive Office Building) in downtown Based on its distinctive design and the

7 Apr. On December 20, 1983, rising concerns over the threat of terrorism led to the closure of a bus tunnel that had been

"The Pentagon." area, including the Jefferson Memorial and National Airport.

On May 19, 1972, a bomb placed by

In May 1942, the War Department changed the name to the Pentagon Building, office building in the world, covering thirty-four acres.