The Machines That Built the Pentagon in 16 Months (1941)

In the autumn of 1941, the U.S. Army took the most worthless piece of land in Arlington, a malarial swamp the locals called Hell's Bottom, and decided to build the largest office building on Earth right on top of it. No time, because a war was coming. No steel to spare, because every ton was promised to warships. And a deadline that bordered on madness: sixteen months from the first shovel of mud to the first desk moved in. This is the story of the machines that pulled it off, the 5.5 million cubic yards of swamp, the 41,492 concrete piles, the dredges that tore sand and gravel straight out of the Potomac River, and the one colonel who walked off this site to go build the atomic bomb. Every documentary takes days of research. You can help us keep going by leaving a small donation, just click the link and support us: https://buymeacoffee.com/Construction... We dug through the official Army Corps of Engineers histories, the engineering press of the era, and the construction photographs in the Library of Congress to tell this one straight. We will name the machines the record names, and tell you honestly where the record goes silent, no invented brand names, no campfire legends. From the swamp that wouldn't hold a building, to the foundation of 41,492 piles, to the ramps that replaced the elevators to save steel for the war, this is the Pentagon as a machine-and-materials story, the way only this channel tells it. TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 A Swamp Called Hell's Bottom 6:39 The Machines That Moved a Mountain 10:51 41,492 Piles and the Colonel Who Drove Them 14:02 No Steel, No Pumps, No Time 21:04 The Workers and the Eight Who Died 26:02 Sixteen Months, and the Atomic Bomb Sources & further reading: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Office of History; Steve Vogel, "The Pentagon: A History"; Alfred Goldberg, "The Pentagon: The First Fifty Years" (Office of the Secretary of Defense); Engineering News-Record; ASCE Civil Engineering; Library of Congress construction photographs. Archival images used for historical and educational commentary under fair use. This is an educational documentary about American construction and engineering history. #Pentagon #ConstructionHistory #WWII #Engineering #History #Construction #1940s #AmericanHistory #Documentary #HeavyMachinery Subscribe for more:    / @constructionlegends