History of the world's tallest buildings
The buildings that were the tallest secular skyscrapers, which excludes religious buildings, were:
The list of tallest buildings is based on the default metric of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), that of measuring to the highest architectural element. Other criteria would generate a different list. Shanghai World Financial Center is not on the above list, but it surpassed Taipei 101 in 2008 to become the building with the highest occupied floor. Using the criteria of highest tip (including antennae), the World Trade Center in New York City was the world's tallest building from 1972 to 2000, until the Sears Tower in Chicago (which already had a higher occupied floor than the World Trade Center) had its antenna extended to give that building the world's tallest tip; a title it held until the 2010 completion of Burj Khalifa. Petronas Towers and Taipei 101 were never the world's tallest buildings by the highest–tip criteria.
List of tenants in One World Trade Center
The original One World Trade Center (also known as the North Tower, Tower 1, Building One, or 1 WTC) was one of the Twin Towers of the original World Trade Center in New York City. It was completed in 1972, standing at a height of , and was the tallest building in the world until being surpassed by the Sears Tower in Chicago in 1973. It was distinguishable from its twin, the original Two World Trade Center, also known as the South Tower, by the telecommunications antenna on its roof. Including the antenna, the building stood at a total height of . The building's address was One World Trade Center, with the WTC complex having its own ZIP code of 10048 due to its large size.