Monday marks the 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks that shook the United States. The 2001 terrorist attack on one of New York’s iconic locations at the time, the World Trade Center, also had a huge impact worldwide. The September 11 attacks were the deadliest attacks on US soil since the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, which launched the US into World War II.
On September 11, 2001, planes crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington, DC, and a field in Pennsylvania. The terrorist attacks claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 people and injured countless others.
This is what happened:
- On the morning of September 11, 2001, nineteen al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four American passenger planes.
- After taking control of the plane, terrorists crashed two of them into the upper floors of the Twin Towers (the North and South Towers) of the World Trade Center complex in Manhattan between 8:00 AM and 9:00 AM. Within two hours, both 110-story towers had collapsed.
- The rubble from the Twin Towers led to the collapse of all other buildings in the World Trade Center complex, including the 47-story 7 World Trade Center Tower.
- The third plane crashed into the US Department of Defense headquarters, the Pentagon in Virginia.
- The fourth plane crashed in a Pennsylvania field after passengers tried to fight back against the hijackers.
- The attacks killed 2,977 people from 93 countries: 2,753 people were killed in New York; 184 people were killed in the Pentagon; and 40 people died on Flight 93.
The destruction of the World Trade Center affected Manhattan’s economy and had a significant effect on world markets. While the cleanup of the World Trade Center site was completed in May 2002, the Pentagon building was repaired within a year. Construction of One World Trade Center began in 2006 on the World Trade Center site and opened to the public in 2014. Several memorials have been built in memory of the victims of the September 11 attacks.