President Franklin D. Roosevelt decided to build a new headquarters for the Department of Defense on a site close to Washington, D.C. Construction began in 1941. In just two years, a crew of 4,000 people worked 24 hours a day in three shifts to finish the largest federal office building in America.
Even though the building is 6,546,360 square feet and has five floors, you can walk to the farthest point from any location in less than ten minutes because of the clever interior design. Today, the famous five-sided building houses almost 24,000 men and women of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard, who work together to protect the United States and the nation's interests abroad. On September 11, 2001, the Pentagon was partially destroyed and 190 people killed when a hijacked jet--manned by terrorists--slammed into the building. The Pentagon Renovation Program has the responsibility of re-building the damaged military headquarters of the United States, which has not undergone a major renovation since its original construction in 1941.
