On This Day - March 22, 1982 – Ground was broken in Washington D.C. for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial designed by Maya Lin of Yale.
On This Day - March 22, 1982 – Ground was broken in Washington D.C. for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial designed by Maya Lin of Yale. Some little known information regarding the Memorial: The wall originally listed 57,939 names when it was dedicated in 1982; however other names have since been added and as of January 2022, there were 58,281 names, including eight women. The number of names on the wall is different from the official number of U.S. Vietnam War deaths as some names were omitted at the request of families. Directories containing all of the names are located on nearby podiums at both ends of the monument where visitors may locate specific names. The memorial has had some unforeseen maintenance issues. In 1984, cracks were detected in the granite and, as a result, two of the panels were temporarily removed in 1986 for study. More cracks were later discovered in 2010. There are a number of hypotheses about the cause of the cracks, the most common being due to thermal cycling. I...