1978: NOAA announces gender-neutral hurricane naming system
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The Pentagon, headquarters of the Defense Department and a symbol of the U.S. military, was dedicated at its Arlington County, Virginia, site on Jan. 15, 1943. The building was designed by American architect George Bergstrom and built by contractor John McShain on a site bordered by five roadways, which inspired the pentagon shape. Ground was broken on Sept. 11, 1941, and it was originally supposed to be temporary; Army Brig. Gen. Brehon Sommervell pitched it as a short-term solution to the then-War Department’s critical shortage of space as the threat of joining World War II became imminent and then to be turned into a hospital, office or warehouse once the war was over. It is the world’s largest office building, with about 6.5 million square feet of space, of which 3.7 million square feet are used as offices. Some 23,000 military and civilian employees, and another 3,000 non-defense support personnel work in the Pentagon. It has a total of 17.5 miles of corridors and its central 5-acre pentagonal plaza is nicknamed “ground zero.”
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