United States Pentagon

United States Pentagon

Aerial View of United States Pentagon, Potomac River and Washington, D.C.

Photo by R. Foulds

postmarked in 2010 with a USA 28 cent stamp

The sender writes:

The Pentagon is a very interesting building indeed! Above it you can see the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial and almost the Capitol Building (the dome is cut off).

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The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia.

Designed by the American architect George Bergstrom (1876–1955), and built by general contractor John McShain, the building was dedicated on January 15, 1943, after ground was broken for construction on September 11, 1941.

The Pentagon is the world's largest office building by floor area, with about 6,500,000 sq ft (604,000 m2), of which 3,700,000 sq ft (344,000 m2) are used as offices. Approximately 23,000 military and civilian employees and about 3,000 non-defense support personnel work in the Pentagon. It has five sides, five floors above ground (plus two basement levels), and five ring corridors per floor with a total of 17.5 miles (28.2 km) of corridors. The Pentagon includes a five-acre (20,000 m²) central plaza, which is shaped like a pentagon.

On September 11, 2001, exactly 60 years since the building's groundbreaking, hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 was crashed into the western side of the Pentagon, killing 189 people, including 64 people aboard the plane and 125 working in the building.