1

A grim past

One of the three "Oyster Islands" in Upper New York Bay—along with Liberty Island and the now-submerged Black Tom Island— Ellis Island changed hands many times during the Dutch and British colonial periods. Initially known as Little Oyster Island, it was often used as an execution site for pirates. In 1774, Welsh merchant Samuel Ellis acquired the island, renamed it after himself, and, in the early 19th century, the government bought it to build a fortress.

2

Why Ellis Island?

In 1890, the American government decided to shut down the Castle Clinton immigration station on the southern tip of Manhattan due to mismanagement and immigrant abuse. After surveying several locations, Ellis Island was chosen as the site for the new station , and in two years, offices, an immigrant hotel, a hospital, a detention building, a laundry building, and a utility plant were built.

3

A growing island

Did you know that Ellis Island used to be much smaller? As construction of the station started, the island was expanded through the creation of three artificial islands, which were then connected to the original land , and much of the dirt and rock used was sourced from the excavation of early New York City subway tunnels. In the end, the island’s original 3.3 acres were expanded to 27.5 acres, meaning that nearly 90% of Ellis Island is manmade.

4

The gateway to America

On January 1, 1892, Ellis Island station opened its doors, and the first to come through them were three children. 17-year-old Annie Moore and her two younger brothers had travelled alone from Cork, Ireland, to meet with their parents , who had migrated a few years earlier. Today, a statue depicting the Moore siblings stands on Ellis Island as a tribute to all those who came to America through the station. From its opening in 1892 to its closure in 1954, the station processed more than 12 million immigrants from all over the world.

5

A connection with nearly half of America

While Ellis Island was not the only immigrant station in America, it was definitely the busiest. It is estimated that around 33 to 40% of living Americans (more than 100 million people) can trace their ancestry back to an Ellis Island immigrant. Today, the station’s records are available online, allowing anyone wanting to explore their family’s past to find their ancestors’ immigration records.

6

Isle of tears

While the popular myth about immigrants having to wait for days to be processed is not true, the inspection process at the station was long and thorough, usually completed in 3 to 5 hours. A medical inspection to rule out physical ailments and infectious diseases was done first, and suspicious cases were sent out to a different area of the station for further testing. Afterwards, a legal questioning about the immigrant’s origin, story, profession, final destination, and economic means was conducted by officers. Those who failed one or both inspections had the chance of a formal hearing before facing deportation, and it is estimated that only 2% of total arrivals were denied entry.

7

Restrictions

In the early 1920s, immigration quotas based on past censuses were enforced. In 1921, the immigration cap per nationality was restricted to 3% of the U.S. population of that origin represented in the 1910 census, a decision that heavily favored northern and western European immigrants. Three years later, the quota was reduced to 2% of the 1890 census, which further restricted immigration from southern and eastern Europe, as well as from Asia and Africa . In 1924, a new migration policy required migrants to secure a visa before the journey, which drastically reduced the number of people going through the station.

8

The detention center

As the flow of immigrants coming through Ellis Island diminished, part of the facilities were repurposed as a detention and deportation center, with the station temporarily closed during WWI, doubling as a jail and a treatment center for wounded soldiers. By the 1930s, the station mainly served as a holding place for individuals detained for illegal entry, overstayed visas, or medical reasons. Unlike other stations, such as Angel Island on the West Coast, Ellis Island was not used as a detention camp for Japanese Americans during WWII, but it was one of the main detention centers for Axis nationals in the New York Area , and later for alleged communist sympathizers during the Red Scare.

9

Who owns Ellis Island?

Several islands in New York Harbor have been a point of contention between the States of New York and New Jersey, including Ellis Island. In 1834, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the above-water land of Ellis Island belonged to New York, while the surrounding submerged land was part of New Jersey, but the matter was not resolved. In 1993, New Jersey contended that, when the island was artificially expanded to make room for the immigration station, it had been done on the submerged land, and therefore, it was part of New Jersey . In 1998, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of New Jersey, stating that New York only had sovereignty over the original 3.3 acres

10

Ellis Island today

In 1965, Ellis Island was designated as part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument, and its restoration process started in 1984, opening as a museum in 1990. Accessible only by ferry from Battery Park in Manhattan or Liberty State Park in New Jersey , the complex offers guided tours through the installations and access to passenger records. Museum access is free for all visitors, but they need to purchase a ticket for the official ferry.

1

Her parents paid for her birth with cornmeal

Dolly Parton’s life has been filled with talent, music, art, and an adoring audience, but it wasn’t always easy for her or her family.

She was born on January 19, 1946, in a one-room log cabin in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, during a snowstorm. The fourth of 12 children, Dolly was born to Robert Lee Parton Sr. and Avie Lee Owens Parton, who were far from wealthy. According to Dolly, her parents paid the doctor who delivered her, Dr. Robert F. Thomas, with a sack of cornmeal because they couldn't afford to pay him in cash. Dolly later honored him in the song "Dr. Robert F. Thomas," which appeared on her 1973 solo studio album, My Tennessee Mountain Home.

2

She made her first guitar from an old mandolin

From a young age, Dolly showed that hard times wouldn’t stop her.

Around 1951, when she was about five years old, she wrote her first song, titled "Little Tiny Tasseltop," about a doll with corn-silk hair that her mother made for her. A couple of years later, Dolly got her first guitar, or rather, she made one herself. Growing up poor, buying a new instrument was impossible for her family. So she decided to turn a broken old mandolin into a makeshift guitar by adding two bass guitar strings. Not long afterward, an uncle gave her a small, proper acoustic guitar, an instrument that helped a young Dolly take her first steps toward performing professionally on local radio and television.

3

She was married to the same man for nearly 60 years

Although they were rarely seen together in public, Dolly Parton married at 20 and spent nearly six decades with the same man.

Dolly was 18 when she arrived in Nashville in 1964, and the city had quite a surprise waiting for her. On her very first day, she went to do laundry at the Wishy Washy Laundromat, where she met Carl Dean, then 21. He spotted her outside, stopped his pickup truck, and struck up a conversation. According to Carl, his first thought was, "I’m gonna marry that girl." Dolly and Carl wed on May 30, 1966, in Ringgold, Georgia, in a small private ceremony. They remained together until Carl’s death on March 3, 2025, just shy of their 60th wedding anniversary.

4

She wrote "Jolene" and "I Will Always Love You" to launch her solo career

During the 1970s, Dolly decided to leave the famous Porter Wagoner Show and strike out on her own as a solo artist. To do it, she turned to what she did best: writing songs.

But she didn’t write just any songs; she wrote two of the most famous hits of the 20th century: "I Will Always Love You" and "Jolene." The first was an emotional farewell to her mentor and duet partner, Porter Wagoner. The other was inspired by a red-haired bank teller who caught Dolly’s attention by openly flirting with her husband at his local bank during the early years of their marriage. Some accounts say she wrote them during the same intense songwriting session in 1973, and there’s even a story that she wrote both on the same day, but Dolly herself has stated she wasn’t 100% sure about that. What is known is that the two songs appeared back-to-back on the same album, 1974’s Jolene .

5

She turned down Elvis

In 1973, Dolly Parton was at a turning point in her career, working hard to establish herself as a solo artist and prove she could make it on her own. That process resulted in one of the most famous and beautiful songs ever recorded: "I Will Always Love You." But she had no idea what would happen just about one year later.

Someone heard the song and immediately wanted to record a cover, and it wasn’t just anyone; it was Elvis Presley himself. Dolly was thrilled by the offer, but eventually had to say no after Presley’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, demanded that she give up 50% of the song’s publishing rights. Parton refused because she wanted to keep the publishing income for her family, but in later interviews, she openly admitted she cried all night after turning down the King.

6

She created "9 to 5" using her fingernails

Everything about Dolly was big: her talent, her creativity, her heart, and also her hair, makeup, and acrylic fingernails. As it turned out, those famous nails even played a part in creating the sound of one of her biggest hits.

Dolly used her nails as a percussion instrument while working on "9 to 5," the theme song for the 1980 movie of the same name. While on the set without a guitar handy, she clacked her long acrylic nails together to create the typical sound of a typewriter, giving the song its memorable rhythm. She even recreated that sound during the recording, earning an unusual credit on the album: "Nails by Dolly."

7

She entered a Dolly Parton lookalike contest... and lost

Dolly Parton always knew how to have a good time, and this story is a perfect example.

As she recalled in her 2012 memoir, Dream More: Celebrate the Dreamer in You , Dolly was in Los Angeles during Halloween when she heard about a look-alike contest at a gay bar on Santa Monica Boulevard, featuring drag queens dressed as her. She couldn’t resist, so she went all out with her hair and makeup, arrived with friends, and entered the contest without revealing who she was. The funniest part? Nobody recognized her; the judges reportedly thought she was a "cheap imitation" of the real thing. As she has said in several interviews, she didn’t win, but she definitely had a good laugh.

8

She had her own theme park

Music wasn’t the only thing that came out of Dolly’s imagination; she also dreamed up another ambitious project: a theme park that would bear her name.

In September 1985, Dolly announced plans to build a "fantasy mountain park" in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, hoping to bring jobs and economic growth to her native region. Rather than competing with others or starting from scratch, her team partnered with the Herschend family, owners of Silver Dollar City park in Pigeon Forge. After a $5 million expansion, the park reopened as Dollywood on May 3, 1986. Attendance more than doubled in its first season, and the park became a major Smoky Mountains attraction. After Dolly’s passing, park officials said keeping Dollywood open had been her wish, reflecting her belief that "the show must go on."

9

The Imagination Library

In addition to thousands of songs and a successful amusement park, Dolly created something else filled with love: a program that put books into children’s hands.

Dolly Parton established the Dollywood Foundation in 1988 and launched Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library in 1995 . The program sends free books each month to children from birth until age five. It eventually expanded beyond the United States to Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Republic of Ireland, reaching millions of children, but the idea was deeply personal. Dolly often called her father, Robert Lee Parton, who she said was the smartest man she had ever known, while noting that his limited literacy had kept him from pursuing some of his dreams. She created the Imagination Library in large part to honor her father and provide children with the opportunities he never had.

10

She was a Guinness World Record holder

We all know how talented and prolific Dolly Parton was, so it’s no surprise that she has earned an impressive number of awards. But Dolly has done more than fill trophy cases; she’s also filled the record books.

Besides her 10 competitive GRAMMY Awards from 55 nominations, along with the GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award that she received in 2011, Dolly also holds 11 Guinness World Records titles, many of them recognizing the extraordinary longevity and success of her career on the country charts. Among them are the record for the longest span of No. 1 hits on the U.S. Top Country Albums chart by a female artist (46 years and 197 days) and the record for the most No. 1 hits on the U.S. Hot Country Songs chart by a female artist, with 25.

1

A renovation project saved thousands of lives on 9/11

On September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m., killing 189 people. Few people know this part: the death toll could have been much higher. But there was a renovation project underway at the time of the attacks.

The Pentagon’s five-sided structure is divided into five "wedges," and workers had been renovating them one at a time. Flight 77 struck the wedge that had just been completed. Of the 4,500 people who normally worked in that section, only about 800 had moved back in. Without the reinforced construction and the incomplete occupancy, experts believe the casualties would have been catastrophically higher.

2

The Cold War and the hot dog stand

In the middle of the Pentagon’s five-acre center courtyard once stood a modest hot dog stand. According to a Cold War legend (one still retold by official Pentagon tour guides on every public tour), between the 60s and the 80s, Soviet satellite images tracked large groups of high-ranking military officials converging on that small building at the same time every day.

Soviet intelligence reportedly concluded the structure must be the entrance to some underground bunker in America. In reality, all it did was sell lunch. In 2006, the original stand was torn down, and a sandwich shop was built in its place.

3

Its construction began on September 11th, exactly 60 years before the attack

Builders broke ground on the Pentagon on September 11, 1941. That was exactly 60 years to the day before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that would strike the same building.

Construction had been ordered by Army Brigadier General Brehon Somervell, who wanted a permanent headquarters for the Defense Department to replace its then-17 scattered offices across Washington, D.C.

The project was extraordinarily ambitious: plans called for the world’s largest office building to be completed in just 16 months. In the end, the conception, design, and construction of the entire Pentagon building took a total of 15 months.

4

The same person oversaw its construction and the Manhattan Project

Colonel Leslie Groves of the Army Corps of Engineers took charge of Pentagon construction in August 1941. He worked six days a week and drove his team relentlessly, at one point employing more than 15,000 workers around the clock.

When the Pentagon was finished in January 1943, Groves was assigned to lead the Manhattan Project, America’s secret program to build the atomic bomb . His deputy, Captain Robert Furman, followed him into the Manhattan Project as chief of foreign intelligence. Together, the men who built the world’s largest office building went on to produce the weapon that ended World War II.

5

Why is it shaped like that?

The Pentagon’s iconic five-sided shape was the consequence of a geographic accident. The original site selected for the building, near Arlington Cemetery, **happened to be bordered on five sides by roads. **Architects designed the structure to fit those boundaries, producing a pentagonal floor plan. Then President Franklin D. Roosevelt intervened: worried the massive building would obstruct the view of Washington, D.C. from Arlington, he ordered the site moved to its current location along the Potomac River. But the five-sided design had already been drawn up, and nobody changed it.

6

It was the first desegregated building in Virginia

When the Pentagon was designed in 1941, segregation was the law in Virginia. Original plans called for doubled bathroom facilities: separate ones for Black and white employees, as required by Virginia statute. But President Roosevelt had signed Executive Order 8802 in June 1941, prohibiting racial discrimination in federal employment and government contracting.

As a federal building, the Pentagon was exempt from Virginia law. It became the only building in the state where segregation was not enforced. A fully desegregated federal workplace that opened in 1943. The doubled bathrooms were built anyway, as the plans were too far along to revise, but were never used as separately designated spaces.

7

Its construction was surprisingly frugal and incredibly fast

Ground broke on September 11, 1941, and construction finished on January 15, 1943, just 16 months later. More than 15,000 workers were on site around the clock. Wartime office shortages were so severe that employees moved into completed wings before the rest of the building was finished. Steel was too scarce to use extensively, so builders relied almost entirely on reinforced concrete. The 689,000 tons of sand and gravel required came directly from the nearby Potomac River, cutting transportation costs. The project was budgeted at $35 million, but the final bill was $63 million, which would translate to over $900 million in today’s dollars.

8

You can walk between its farthest points in only 7 minutes

The Pentagon is the world’s largest low-rise office building: 6.5 million square feet of space, which is three times the total floor area of the Empire State Building. Each of its five outer walls is 921 feet long. It has 7,754 windows and 17.5 miles of corridors. Approximately 26,000 military and civilian employees report for work there every day.

Despite that scale, the building’s concentric ring design is so efficient that it takes only about seven minutes to walk between its two farthest points.

9

The man who secretly lived inside its walls

During construction, Colonel Groves drove his deputy, Captain Robert Furman, so relentlessly that Furman rarely left the building. To cope, Furman had contractors build him a small, windowless apartment hidden inside the walls of the Army’s Ordnance Division. In this private room, he could sleep and shower without leaving the premises.

When construction ended and personnel dispersed, knowledge of the hidden room was never passed on to building management. Months later, when Furman returned to Washington on Manhattan Project intelligence business, he found the apartment undiscovered and exactly as he’d left it.

For over a year, he would slip back to the Pentagon, pop open a wall panel, spend the night, and emerge in the morning with his suitcase. He was finally caught in 1943 and forced to surrender the keys. It was never disclosed whether the secret apartment was maintained or eventually absorbed back into the official floor plans.

10

It houses over 30 restaurants, including everyone's favorite chains

The Pentagon feeds roughly 26,000 people a day, and its dining options read less like a military headquarters and more like a mall food court. The main Concourse Food Court, which opened in September 2009 and seats 875 people, is the largest of several dining areas.

Confirmed chains currently inside the building include McDonald’s, Five Guys, Subway, Popeyes, Starbucks (multiple locations), Dunkin’ (two locations), Panera Bread, Taco Bell, Panda Express, Baskin-Robbins, Potbelly, Jamba Juice, and Moe’s Southwest Grill, among others. The building also houses a CVS pharmacy, a florist, a jeweler, and a dry cleaner. In the summer of 2024, Potbelly became the first restaurant to open in the center courtyard. Yes, the very spot where the legendary Cold War hot dog stand once stood.