Almanac: The world's tallest building
And now a page from our "Sunday Morning" Almanac: January 4th, 2010, 5 years ago today . . . a spectacular debut for the world's tallest building.
For that was the day the Burj Khalifa opened for business in the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai.
Resembling a minaret, the Burj Khalifa Soars 2,716-and-a-half feet -- more than half a mile.
The building features corporate offices, apartments, and a luxury hotel.
The dizzying structure became an instant landmark, and even played a cameo in the 2011 film, "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol," with Tom Cruise performing his own stunts some 1,700 feet up.
Not that the pride of Dubai can rest on its laurels.
Saudi Arabia has launched construction of the Kingdom Tower, designed to rise a full kilometer . . . that's 3,280 feet, more than 500 feet taller than the Burj Khalifa.
But for how long would IT be the tallest?
After all, as far back as 1956, the late American architect Frank Lloyd Wright proposed a mile-tall skyscraper, the Illinois, posing next to an illustration (which was itself 22 feet tall).
It was never built, of course, but who knows?
For now, at least, Dubai's Burj Khalifa remains securely in first place, having just rung in the New Year with a fireworks and light show that would be hard for anyone to top.