Staff members of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth damaged a historic World War II-era globe while attempting to move it to his office on February 3, 2026. According to a source familiar with the incident, the 30-inch floor globe—previously used by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower—was dropped and crashed onto its base. The impact resulted in a gash several inches wide near Antarctica and detached the spherical portion from its metal mounting.
The attempted relocation occurred during a partial government shutdown caused by a disagreement in Congress over the Trump administration’s immigration policies. The Army office that held the artifact had expected to use trained curators from the U.S. Army Center of Military History, but those experts were furloughed. Hegseth’s staff proceeded with the move without expert assistance after failing to reach the specialists, according to reporting from The Washington Post.
A Pentagon official confirmed the accident on Thursday, stating that the globe was being repaired and that no one was injured during the move. Army spokesman Christopher Surridge also confirmed the date of the incident and the specific mechanical damage to the artifact’s rotation mount. The globe was not ultimately moved into Hegseth's office following the damage.
The personnel involved are federal employees within the Department of Defense. For these workers and the broader federal workforce, the incident occurred against the backdrop of a partial government shutdown, a period when roughly 800,000 federal employees nationwide typically face furloughs or work without pay. The reports indicate that the absence of these specialized staff directly contributed to the decision by non-expert personnel to handle the transport of the relic themselves.
The globe is currently undergoing repairs to fix the gash and the detached mounting. It is not yet known how long the restoration will take or what the final cost of the repairs will be. While the artifact remains in the custody of the Army, the Pentagon has denied requests to view or photograph the damage in person. No further attempts to relocate the globe to the Secretary’s office have been reported since the February incident. The Department of Defense has characterized the event as an "inconsequential non-story."