The article describes what the Pentagon is, when this building was created, what roles it performs and who is its head.
Services
With the development of human society, the need for various state services and organizations gradually appeared. And probably, the greatest attention has always been paid to those services that are engaged in ensuring the security of the country and its citizens, for example, the army, law enforcement agencies, etc. And the organization of their work, control and everything else is usually the responsibility of the ministry of defense. In the United States, the Pentagon is such.
This building of a peculiar form over time became very recognizable, and its name firmly entered the everyday speech of the military as a designation of the Ministry of Defense. But what is the Pentagon when it was built? We’ll talk about this.
History
As already mentioned, the Pentagon is the headquarters of the US Department of Defense. This name comes from the peculiar shape of a regular pentagon. And metonymically, he began to designate the Department of Defense for a long time both among the American military and among foreign journalists, observers, military experts, and others. So now we know what the Pentagon is.
This building is also the largest office in the world, and its construction was completed in 1943. If we talk about dimensions, then the length of each side is 281 meters, the total perimeter is 1405 meters, and the total length of the corridors is 28 kilometers.
The architect Bergstrom was engaged in its design, and the plan of a new, very spacious and carefully thought-out building was ordered directly by the US Department of Defense. So we sorted out the question of what the Pentagon is.
Features of construction and interesting facts
Despite the general conviction, the pentagonal shape of the building does not have any sacred meaning, just in the place where it was originally intended to be built, there were its own characteristics of the terrain, relief, location of roads and everything else, which led the architects to create a building of this shape. However, before the immediate start of construction, they decided to change the location of the future building of the Ministry of Defense. And although there were no restrictions in the form of third-party objects in the new place, they decided to leave the pentagonal shape the same, so the modern Pentagon turned out. This building is probably recognizable all over the world.
The central lawn of the courtyard has the unofficial name “Ground Zero”. This name was given to him by employees of the Ministry during the Cold War, and it has a somewhat ironic character, designating a target for nuclear missiles of the Soviet Union.
You can also often find the question of where the Pentagon is located. And it is located in the United States, in the state of Virginia, near Washington.
And by the way, the layout of the building was created during the racial segregation, and the final stages of construction - after the repeal of this law. And therefore, the number of toilet rooms in the end turned out to be doubled, since some of them were intended exclusively for use by blacks. And this fact is probably the most frequent that is mentioned in stories about the Pentagon. This building is famous for such a story.
September 11, 2001
Almost everyone knows about the tragic events of this date. However, in the first place, it is associated precisely with how planes crashed into skyscraper buildings. But few people remember that one of the planes hijacked by terrorists was rammed by the Pentagon.
On September 11, the plane crashed into the left outer wing of the building, where at that time the headquarters of the Navy command was located. Part of the wall collapsed, and severe damage was caused by fire. As a result of all this, the number of victims was 125 people, 64 of them were passengers of the hijacked aircraft.
About 20 minutes after the direct collision, another part of the wall collapsed, which greatly slowed down the fire and rescue operations. But with all the tragedy of the victims, there could have been much more. The thing is that, shortly before the terrorist attack, repairs were barely completed in that part of the building, and there were few workers there.
Later, after all the restoration work in the newly rebuilt wing, a memorial was erected in memory of those who died on that fateful day.
Head of the Pentagon
The head of the Pentagon is US Secretary of Defense Ashton Baldwin Carter. This post he took on February 17, 2015. Carter is the twenty-fifth Secretary of Defense of the United States, and Barack Obama himself introduced him to this position.
Carter has a bachelor's degree in theoretical physics, and many of his rivals have stated that a scientist from him would have been better than a politician.
After the outbreak of the military conflict in eastern Ukraine, Carter has repeatedly stated that various kinds of pressure must be exerted on Russia, since, in his opinion, it is precisely this that is causing the war and the unstable situation in Kiev.