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World Trade Center

On September 11, 2001, at 8:45 a.m. on a clear Tuesday morning, an American Airlines Boeing 767 loaded with 20,000 gallons of jet fuel crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City.

The impact left a gaping, burning hole near the 80th floor of the 110-story skyscraper, instantly killing hundreds of people and trapping hundreds more in higher floors.

As the evacuation of the tower and its twin got underway, television cameras broadcasted live images of what initially appeared to be a freak accident. Then, 18 minutes after the first plane hit, a second Boeing 767-United Airlines Flight 175-appeared out of the sky, turned sharply toward the World Trade Center and sliced into the south tower near the 60th floor.

The collision caused a massive explosion that showered burning debris over surrounding buildings and onto the streets below. It immediately became clear that America was under attack.

Osama bin Laden

The hijackers were Islamic terrorists from Saudi Arabia and several other Arab nations. Reportedly financed by the al Qaeda terrorist organization of Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden, they were allegedly acting in retaliation for America's support of Israel, its involvement in the Persian Gulf War and its continued military presence in the Middle East.

Some of the terrorists had lived in the United States for more than a year and had taken flying lessons at American commercial flight schools. Others had slipped into the country in the months before September 11 and acted as the "muscle" in the operation.

Where Did the 9/11 Planes Take Off From?

The 19 terrorists smuggled box-cutters and knives through security at three East Coast airports-Logan International Airport in Boston, Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C. and Newark International Airport in New Jersey-and boarded four early-morning flights bound for California, chosen because the planes were loaded with fuel for the long transcontinental journey. Soon after takeoff, the terrorists commandeered the four planes and took the controls, transforming ordinary passenger jets into guided missiles.

Pentagon Attack

As millions watched the events unfolding in New York, American Airlines Flight 77 circled over downtown Washington, D.C., before crashing into the west side of the Pentagon military headquarters at 9:45 a.m.

Jet fuel from the Boeing 757 caused a devastating inferno that led to the structural collapse of a portion of the giant concrete building, which is the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense.

All told, 125 military personnel and civilians were killed in the Pentagon, along with all 64 people aboard the airliner.

Twin Towers Collapse

Less than 15 minutes after the terrorists struck the nerve center of the U.S. military, the horror in New York took a catastrophic turn when the south tower of the World Trade Center collapsed in a massive cloud of dust and smoke.

The structural steel of the skyscraper, built to withstand winds in excess of 200 miles per hour and a large conventional fire, could not withstand the tremendous heat generated by the burning jet fuel.

At 10:30 a.m., the north building of the twin towers collapsed. Only 18 people in the World Trade Center towers at the time of the collapse survived. Most were with a group of FDNY firefighters in the North Tower's Stairwell B, which remained intact. One woman survived after the stairs she was rushing down disintegrated around her. Almost 10,000 others were treated for injuries, many severe.

Flight 93

Meanwhile, a fourth California-bound plane- United Flight 93-was hijacked about 40 minutes after leaving Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey. Because the plane had been delayed in taking off, passengers on board learned of events in New York and Washington via cell phone and Airfone calls to the ground.

Knowing that the aircraft was not returning to an airport as the hijackers claimed, a group of passengers and flight attendants planned an insurrection.

One of the passengers, Thomas Burnett, Jr., told his wife over the phone that "I know we're all going to die. There's three of us who are going to do something about it. I love you, honey." Another passenger-Todd Beamer-was heard saying "Are you guys ready? Let's roll" over an open line.

Sandy Bradshaw, a flight attendant, called her husband and explained that she had slipped into a galley and was filling pitchers with boiling water. Her last words to him were "Everyone's running to first class. I've got to go. Bye."

The passengers fought the four hijackers and are suspected to have attacked the cockpit with a fire extinguisher. The plane then flipped over and sped toward the ground at upwards of 500 miles per hour, crashing in a rural field near Shanksville in western Pennsylvania at 10:10 a.m.

All 44 people aboard were killed. Its intended target is not known, but theories include the White House, the U.S. Capitol, the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland or one of several nuclear power plants along the eastern seaboard.

How Many People Died in the 9/11 Attacks?

A total of 2,996 people were killed in the 9/11 attacks, including the 19 terrorist hijackers aboard the four airplanes. Citizens of 78 countries died in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania.

At the World Trade Center, 2,763 died after the two planes slammed into the twin towers. That figure includes 343 firefighters and paramedics, 23 New York City police officers and 37 Port Authority police officers who were struggling to complete an evacuation of the buildings and save the office workers trapped on higher floors.

At the Pentagon, 189 people were killed, including 64 on American Airlines Flight 77, the airliner that struck the building. On Flight 93, 44 people died when the plane crash-landed in Pennsylvania.

America Responds to the Attacks

At 7 p.m., President George W. Bush, who was in Florida at the time of the attacks and had spent the day being shuttled around the country because of security concerns, returned to the White House.

At 9 p.m., he delivered a televised address from the Oval Office, declaring, "Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve."

In a reference to the eventual U.S. military response he declared, "We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them."

Operation Enduring Freedom, the American-led international effort to oust the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and destroy Osama bin Laden's terrorist network based there, began on October 7. Within two months, U.S. forces had effectively removed the Taliban from operational power, but the war continued, as U.S. and coalition forces attempted to defeat a Taliban insurgency campaign based in neighboring Pakistan.

Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the September 11th attacks, remained at large until May 2, 2011, when he was finally tracked down and killed by U.S. forces at a hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan. In June 2011, then-President Barack Obama announced the beginning of large-scale troop withdrawals from Afghanistan; it took until August 2021 for all U.S. forces to withdraw.

Department of Homeland Security Is Created

In the wake of security fears raised by 9/11 and the mailing of letters containing anthrax that killed two and infected 17, The Homeland Security Act of 2002 created the Department of Homeland Security. It was signed into law by President George W. Bush on November 25, 2002. Today, the Department of Homeland Security is a cabinet responsible for preventing terror attacks, border security, immigrations and customs and disaster relief and prevention.

The act was followed two days later by the formation of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. The bipartisan " 9/11 Commission," as it came to be known, was charged with investigating the events that lead up to September 11th. The 9/11 Commission Report was released on July 22, 2004. It named Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind behind 9/11, "the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks."

Mohammed led propaganda operations for al Qaeda from 1999-2001. He was captured on March 1, 2003 by the Central Intelligence Agency and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence and interrogated before being imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay detention camp with four other accused terrorists charged with 9/11-related war crimes. The use of torture, including waterboarding, during Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's interrogation has received international attention. In August 2019, a U.S. military court judge in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba set a trial date for Mohammed and the other four men charged with plotting the 9/11 terrorist attacks to begin in 2021; it was later postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Economic Impact of 9/11

The 9/11 attacks had an immediate negative effect on the U.S. economy. Many Wall Street institutions, including the New York Stock Exchange, were evacuated during the attacks. On the first day of trading after the attacks, the market fell 7.1 percent, or 684 points. New York City's economy alone lost 143,000 jobs a month and $2.8 billion wages in the first three months. The heaviest losses were in finance and air transportation, which accounted for 60 percent of lost jobs. The estimated cost of the World Trade Center damage is $60 billion. The cost to clean the debris at Ground Zero was $750 million.

Victim Compensation Fund

Thousands of first responders and people working and living in lower Manhattan near Ground Zero were exposed to toxic fumes and particles emanating from the towers as they burned and fell. By 2018, 10,000 people were diagnosed with 9/11-related cancer.

From 2001 to 2004, over $7 billion dollars in compensation was given to families of the 9/11 victims and the 2,680 people injured in the attacks. Funding was renewed on January 2, 2011, when President Barack Obama signed The James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act into law. Named for James Zadroga, a New York City Police officer who died of respiratory disease he contracted after rescuing people from the rubble at Ground Zero, the law continued health monitoring and compensation for 9/11 first responders and survivors.

In 2015, funding for the treatment of 9/11-related illness was renewed for five more years at a total of $7.4 billion. The Victim Compensation Fund was set to stop accepting claims in December 2020.

On July 29, 2019, then-President Trump signed a law authorizing support for the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund through 2092. Previously, administrators had cut benefits by up to 70 percent as the $7.4 billion fund depleted. Vocal lobbyists for the fund included Jon Stewart, 9/11 first responder John Feal and retired New York Police Department detective and 9/11 responder Luis Alvarez, who died of cancer 18 days after testifying before Congress.

Anniversary and Memorial

On December 18, 2001, Congress approved naming September 11 "Patriot Day" to commemorate the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. In 2009, Congress named September 11 a National Day of Service and Remembrance.

The first memorials to September 11 came in the immediate wake of the attacks, with candlelight vigils and flower tributes at U.S. embassies around the world. In Great Britain, Queen Elizabeth sang the American national anthem during the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. Rio de Janeiro put up billboards showing the city's Christ the Redeemer statue embracing the New York City skyline.

For the first anniversary of the attacks in New York City in 2002, two bright columns of light were shot up into the sky from where the Twin Towers once stood. The "Tribute in Light" then became an annual installation run by the Municipal Art Society of New York. On clear nights, the beams are visible from over 60 miles away.

A World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition was held to select an appropriate permanent memorial to the victims of 9/11. The winning design by Michael Arad, "Reflecting Absence," now sits outside the museum in an eight-acre park. It consists of two reflecting pools with waterfalls rushing down where the Twin Towers once rose into the sky.

The names of all 2,983 victims are engraved on the 152 bronze panels surrounding the pools, arranged by where individuals were on the day of the attacks, so coworkers and people on the same flight are memorialized together. The site was opened to the public on September 11, 2011, to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of 9/11. The National September 11 Memorial & Museum followed, opening on the original World Trade Center site in May 2014. The Freedom Tower, also on the original World Trade Center site, opened in November 2014.

Sources

"Study Confirms 9/11 Impact on New York City Economy." The New York Times
"September 11: nearly 10,000 people affected by 'cesspool of cancer.'" The Guardian.
"Congress passes 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund extension championed by Jon Stewart." CNN.com
The Encyclopedia of 9/11. New York Magazine.
FAQ About 9/11. 9/11 Memorial.
September 11th Terror Attacks Fast Facts. CNN.
9/11 Death Statistics. StatisticBrain.com.

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September 11 Attacks: Facts, Background & Impact

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On September 11, 2001, 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al Qaeda hijacked four airplanes and carried out suicide attacks against targets in the United States. Two of the planes were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, a third plane hit the Pentagon just outside Washington, D.C., and the fourth plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.

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History of 9/11 Attacks

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Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the attacks, which were orchestrated by Osama bin Laden

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Ohio State's Peter Hahn takes a close look at the causes and legacy of the 9/11 attacks

The images from that day still haunt us.

The Twin Towers plummeting to the ground, one following the other, smoke snaking through streets, billowing for blocks, fear and confusion spreading like ashes across the country.

We know now what we didn't know that day: that the terrorist attack had been building for more than a decade. And that it would change our country, irreparably, forever.

Here, Peter Hahn, a professor of history and dean of arts and humanities at Ohio State, discusses the causes - and lingering consequences - of 9/11.

9/11 resulted from the confluence of multiple factors.

Islamic extremism was stirred by the Iranian Revolution, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the assassination of the Egyptian president. That extremism turned anti-American because of U.S. support for Israel and repressive and secular Arab regimes.

Soaring birthrates and limited economic opportunities generated social pressures. Extremist thinking embraced violence because local regimes left no other options for peaceful, democratic reform.

The proliferation of weapons gave activists the means to inflict harm, and innovation in communications facilitated worldwide publicity about their deeds - which served the psychological warfare objective of unsettling western populations.

After contesting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, the Saudi nationalist Osama bin Laden organized a network of unconventional combatants known as Al-Qaida. Bin Laden believed that the stationing of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War of 1990-91 violated the sacred spaces around Mecca and Medina, and in 1996, he essentially declared war on the United States.

From sanctuaries in Sudan and then Afghanistan, bin Laden and his allies orchestrated a series of terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York in 1993, an American military barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1996, the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and a U.S. Navy ship in Aden Harbor in 2000.

Presidents Clinton and Bush deployed intelligence, law enforcement and diplomatic and military officials to foil the mounting menace of terrorism. But they failed to detect bin Laden's most audacious plot ever, to strike New York and Washington, D.C., with highjacked civilian airliners piloted by suicide bombers.

That surprise assault on Sept. 11, 2001, destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade Center, badly damaged the Pentagon and left some 3,000 Americans dead.

How did the United States respond to 9/11?

The United States reacted to the 9/11 attacks in a variety of ways.

Within several weeks of the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush ordered an invasion of Afghanistan. The Taliban regime, which had given Osama bin Laden sanctuary, was ousted from government, but their resistance continued to the modern day - from strongholds in the mountainous southeastern region of Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan.

The psychological impact of 9/11 led Bush to launch an invasion of Iraq in 2003. While he initially embraced Clinton's approach of containing Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, he shifted to belligerence out of determination to prevent any additional surprise terrorist attacks, especially given nightmare scenarios about terrorists deploying weapons of mass destruction.

What happened to bin Laden?

The United States launched a steady campaign to identify and eliminate terrorist ringleaders - many with deadly force. Most famously, in 2011, President Barack Obama ordered a secret military mission into Pakistan that resulted in the killing of bin Laden.

What changed in the United States after the terrorist attacks?

9/11 and the 2001 anthrax attacks galvanized the security consciousness of the American people. A focus on "homeland security" led to the establishment of a White House office and, eventually, a cabinet department of that name.

Public service announcements encouraged citizens to remain vigilant, report suspicious activity and prepare for disasters. The Patriot Act of 2001 authorized enhanced domestic surveillance and law enforcement techniques previously considered excessive.

Federal authorities rounded up 1,200 men of Middle Eastern ethnicity for detention and questioning, tried terrorist suspects in military tribunals, suspended attorney-client privilege and searched business and communication records without owners' consent or warrants. The Transportation Security Administration was created to bolster airport security.

As years passed without additional, spectacular attacks on the homeland, concern relaxed. Legal provisions of the Patriot Act were gradually, although not completely, rescinded.

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What caused 9/11 - and the consequences that linger

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Learn more about the causes and consequences of 9/11 as this Ohio State history professor discusses the events of that day and the effect they've had.

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They don't remember their parents dying on 9/11. But they will never forget.

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They don't remember their parents dying on 9/11. But they will never forget.

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Twenty years ago this week, on Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists launched coordinated attacks on the U.S. using airplanes as their weapons.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed.

Many of those who died left behind children who were so young they never got to know their parents. A new generation has grown up over the past two decades with few if any memories of those they lost; perhaps just a hazy glimpse that continues to fade over the years, or a faint echo of a voice.

These are some of their stories.

"How do I define myself without the most important male role model in my life?"

An Nguyen smiles as he flips through some old family photos: there he is, a 1-year-old, cuddling on his father's lap. A 3-year-old, riding high on his dad's shoulders at their home in Fairfax, Va.

But then there he is, having just turned 4, wearing a traditional Vietnamese white headband for mourning, weeping over his father's casket.

"Being so young and so vulnerable," An says, "it was a really difficult time."

An's father, Khang Nguyen, was an electronics engineer who worked as a contractor for the Navy. He was killed when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon - a direct hit in the area where he worked. He was 41.

There's a family photo of An - a small boy in khaki overalls, standing outside the Pentagon - taken just a few days after the attack. He's clutching an orange safety fence. Where the plane struck the building, a whole section is gone. There's just a blackened, gaping hole, open to the sky.

Khang Nguyen was born in Vietnam. He grew up amidst the trauma of war, and emigrated from Vietnam to the U.S. in 1981, where he met and married An's mother, Tu HoNguyen. An is their only child.

An's memories of his father are few. "He would sing, sometimes very loudly," he recalls. "A lot of classical or traditional songs in Vietnamese."

In a picture book he made in elementary school, titled What My Father Means to Me, An wrote, "When my father died, I forgot everything from him. I was very sad when he died, but I still love him so much."

To illustrate that page, An sketched a jet plane about to crash into the Pentagon. He drew himself off to one side, with tears falling down his face.

As he's grown, with so few memories of the father he lost, An has had to reckon with huge life questions.

"In some regards I'm on my own," he says, "trying to understand how this world operates and possibly more importantly, how do I know myself? How do I define myself without the most important male role model in my life?"

An, who will turn 24 on Sept. 9, is a software engineer, soon to get his master's degree from George Mason University. It's a degree his dad was on track to get himself when his life was cut short.

In this 20 th anniversary year, An sees his upcoming educational achievement as a gift for his father. "It embodies my father's legacy," he says. "I know he would be very proud of where I've gone and what I've persevered for, under his name."

On 9/11, An and his mother plan to attend the annual memorial service at the Pentagon. At home, on the family altar for Khang, they will set out his favorite foods: the Vietnamese noodle soup pho, some tropical fruits, and chè, a sweet pudding. They will light incense, and pray.

Her mom told her bad men on his plane killed her dad, and it made her afraid of all men

In a field just outside Shanksville, Pa., the Flight 93 National Memorial features a towering musical instrument: 40 wind chimes, representing the 40 passengers and crew who died when United Flight 93 crashed there after being overtaken by hijackers.

LeRoy Homer was the co-pilot on that flight. He was 36 when he died.

He had fallen in love with planes as a little boy growing up on Long Island, N.Y. He would watch aircraft take off and land for hours.

As a teen, he worked at night cleaning medical buildings to save up money for flying lessons. He got his private pilot's license when he was 16.

Homer joined United Airlines after a military career as an Air Force pilot, flying C-141 cargo planes during the Gulf War, and later, flying humanitarian missions in Somalia.

Homer's only child, his daughter Laurel Homer, was 10 months old when her father was killed in the crash.

"I don't know that much," she says. "It's something that I just don't ask about a lot."

For Laurel, walling off the facts of her dad's death has been a protective measure. "It's something that I grew up kind of ashamed of," she says. "I wasn't normal like all the other people that went to my school. It's something that makes me very vulnerable and it makes me different. And I didn't like people to know."

From a very early age, Laurel was traumatized by the little she did know about how her father died.

"The way my mom explained it to me was that there were bad men on his plane and that he was gone because of those bad men," she says. "So then it basically made me terrified of all men, including family members, strangers, everybody."

Child therapy helped with that. Later, so did going to a summer camp for children who lost loved ones on 9/11, Camp Better Days.

There, Laurel says, she didn't feel different or vulnerable. Everyone understood what she was going through; they all shared that same empty space at the heart of their family.

Still, she wondered about the kids she met there who did have time to get to know and love their parents.

"It's definitely a hard place to be when you saw a future that you never got to have," she says. "We don't have memories to get to think about. We just have to think about what we didn't have."

Laurel, 20, is starting her senior year at Rutgers University, majoring in companion animal science. She usually avoids memorial services on 9/11; she tends to grieve alone. And she tries to ignore the constant reminders - everywhere, in the news, on social media - of what that day means for her and her family.

To honor LeRoy Homer's legacy, Laurel's mother, Melodie Homer, established the LeRoy W. Homer Jr. Foundation, which provides scholarships to young people interested in careers in aviation. "I'm happy that my mom was able to make something good of a bad situation," Laurel says. "She's definitely shown that good things can come from those situations."

"There's never going to be a version of me that doesn't hate the people that did that"

When A.J. Niedermeyer tries to remember his father, who died when A.J. was 2 ½, it's "more a sense than a memory," he says. "A warm fuzzy feeling, for sure."

A.J. is named for his father, Alfonse Niedermeyer, who was known as "Big Al" - a strapping guy, often the loudest voice in the room.

A Port Authority police officer who lived in Manasquan, N.J., he rushed to the World Trade Center to help with rescues. He was 40 when he died in the south tower.

Soon after his memorial service, his wife, Nancy, discovered she was pregnant with their second child.

She chose the name Angelica, meaning "messenger of God." Middle name: Joy.

"I've told you this before, Angelica," A.J. reminds his sister, "you were one of the best things that could have possibly happened right then, and then every year after that. It was huge for mom and huge for me, too."

"Thanks," Angelica whispers.

For Angelica, born eight months after her father died, all she knows of her father comes from photos, videos, or stories passed along.

"I do remember when A.J. would miss our dad," she says, "and I would try so hard to understand. You know, he would say, like, 'Oh, I miss daddy,' and I'd be, like, 'Well, I miss him, too!' even though I didn't even understand what that meant. I just wanted to be included."

Responding to that, A.J. tells his sister, "I think for a long time, Angelica - I mean, I don't want to speak for you, but I think it meant a lot to you, the fact that I had had those two and a half years. But you know, I was so young and there's so much that I don't remember."

Angelica says she had some resentment toward her brother because he had even those couple of years with their dad. "I was definitely jealous," Angelica admits. "My brain was like, 'Oh, at least my dad knew that he existed, and he had some time with him.' "

Both Angelica and A.J. say the hero narrative wrapped around the story of the 9/11 first responders can overwhelm their intimate, personal loss.

As A.J. puts it, it can be hard to cut through their dad's "larger-than-lifeness."

And, he says, it's hard for him to stomach the ways 9/11 has become politicized: used as fodder for both patriotism and retribution.

When he was 14, A.J. flew with his mom to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to observe a pre-trial hearing for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other defendants who are charged with orchestrating the 9/11 attacks.

"There's never going to be a version of me that doesn't hate the people that did that," he says. "I do want justice, whatever that is, for the people who orchestrated it. And I do want justice for the systems that supported them financially and made it possible, gave them shelter. But I hate how our lives and our narratives become part of a narrative that's weaponized for interests that have nothing to do with us."

Later this month, A.J., who is 22, will head to graduate school at the University of Chicago. Angelica, 19, is a sophomore at Manhattan College.

On 9/11, their family tradition is to visit the memorial at Ground Zero. There, they will touch their father's name, inscribed with so many others on the bronze parapet where the south tower once stood.

It was years before the twins were told how their mom died, and their world shattered

A home video from 1997 shows Lisa Trerotola, with curly dark hair and a heart-shaped face, hugely and happily pregnant with the twins she and her husband, Michael, had a hard time conceiving.

"Seventeen weeks!" she says proudly. "Starting on my fifth month!"

The twins, Amanda and Michael, would be 3½ when their mom, Lisa, was killed in the north tower of the World Trade Center. She was 36; an administrative assistant for the Port Authority.

The twins were so young when she died that they don't have much to hold on to.

"There's not a lot that I know about my mom," Michael says. "From what I understand, she was extremely hard-working and probably one of the kindest people you would meet."

As for what Amanda remembers, "I probably only have, like, two very cloudy memories of her," she says. "I can just see images, but it's very slim to none."

After 9/11, Michael says, "I sort of recall that someone asked if she was coming home, and I remember my dad replying that she isn't coming back."

But beyond that, the twins weren't told what happened to their mother. They had a vague idea that she had died in a fire. They don't remember a funeral.

Their dad soon remarried, and Lizz, whom they call their "new mom," became the mother they knew.

It wasn't until they were 11 years old that their father and Lizz sat them down and told them the truth: that in fact, their mom was killed in the attacks of 9/11.

"And I just remember my brother tucking his head in the pillow and just crying his eyes out," Amanda says. "He was gasping, and then of course I started gasping."

Michael adds, "It was just utter shock."

The twins were finally told the reality when their parents thought they were old enough to understand it: Terrorists. Hijacking. Skyscrapers collapsing.

Everything the children thought they knew was shattered.

"Honestly," Amanda says, "it just felt like the world got a lot smaller at that moment, and it wasn't as safe anymore."

"I agree," Michael says. "That moment just still sticks out to me because it's so world-crushing. And what you thought you knew isn't what is."

Their parents' fears, exacerbated by 9/11, meant that the twins weren't allowed to go on trains, planes, or boats, and they couldn't go into Manhattan, even though they lived just about an hour away in New Jersey.

As their dad explains it now, he became hyper-protective, trying to guard the family against further loss.

Amanda and Michael are now 23 and college seniors, at Ohio State and The College of New Jersey, respectively. Neither of them has ever gone to see the Sept. 11 memorial at Ground Zero.

Instead, they try to keep the memory of their mother, Lisa, close in small ways.

Amanda remembers that when she went to take her driving test to get her license, she brought along a photo of her mom, holding the toddler twins.

"Afterwards, I did find out I passed," Amanda says. "And I remember taking the picture out of my center console and just saying, 'Mom, I did it, and you would be so happy! I really wish you were here to, like, see me!' I just was overjoyed. And at one point I kissed the picture and I was like, 'See, I did it, mom!' "

After 20 years, the annual commemoration of those killed on 9/11 still feels overwhelming to them. "That feeling never goes away," Amanda says. "The fact that our family in essence is part of a national tragedy."

"It's just very troubling to navigate," Michael says. "It's like a giant sea of loss and grief."

"I do feel the absence of my father. But it's weird because I don't know what I'm missing"

Manuel DaMota Jr. never met his father, but the elder DaMota's craftsmanship can still be found throughout the family's Long Island home. Tables, chairs and dressers around the house all bear the mark of Manuel Sr.'s skilled woodworker hands. The basement, which he built himself, has a workroom where some of his tools still lay just as he left them more than two decades ago.

Manuel Sr. was 43 when he was killed in the North Tower while working on a project for the Windows on the World restaurant. Manuel Jr., who goes by Manny, was born six months later.

Manny grew up collecting stories about his father from family members and friends. He says he was driven to find out more about his dad to try to feel the same closeness others who were in his father's life can recall from their own memories - memories Manny has to borrow.

"I just realized that was someone I never met but at the same time was so dear and so important to my life and who I am as a person," Manny says. "I do feel the absence of my father. But it's weird because I don't know what I'm missing, but I know I'm missing it."

Through stories and photographs, Manny has pieced together an understanding of his father as a Beatles lover, a gifted artisan and a "pillar" in the lives of those around him - always there for Manny's mother and elder brother, who was 10 when their father was killed.

Like Laurel Homer, Manny attended a summer camp for children who lost parents in the attacks. At America's Camp, set in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts, he looked up to the counselors, many of whom also lost a parent on 9/11.

He says that one of the most memorable parts of camp was conversations with counselors about their shared grief. Seeing counselors openly talk about their emotions became proof "to show ourselves that we can keep going without our loved ones there."

After attending camp for a few years, Manny moved to Paraguay in 2010 to be closer to his mother's family. He can recall at least five instances over a decade attending the American School of Asuncion when he became a steady shoulder to lean on for classmates who lost one of their own family members, just as the camp counselors had been for him.

The role came naturally to Manny, who aspires to a career where he can help people with their personal and emotional lives. He is now a sophomore studying psychology at Pace University in downtown Manhattan, a 10-minute walk from Ground Zero.

During his freshman year, Manny visited the reflecting pools at least every other week, and sometimes more than once in the same week, because being there makes him feel close to his dad.

Usually he visits alone, but on the anniversary this year he will make the trip with his mother, elder brother and younger sister, who was born five years after 9/11. The family plans on saying Manuel Sr.'s name aloud when it's read during the ceremony, and afterward, they plan on having dinner at one of Manuel Sr.'s favorite restaurants before visiting his grave.

"I definitely have that love towards him even though I never met him, never felt him," Manny says. "He was important to my family, therefore he's important to me."

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They Don't Remember Their Parents Dying On 9/11. But They'll Never Forget

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Many children of 9/11 victims were too young to remember their parents who died. They've grown up living with the tension between having a personal connection to the day but few, if any memories.

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Smoke pours from the twin towers of the World Trade Center after they were hit by two hijacked airliners in a terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001, in New York. Nearly 3,000 people were killed after two hijacked planes slammed into the World Trade Center; one hit the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia; and one crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Complete coverage: Remembering 9/11

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Nearly 3,000 people were killed when hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on September 11, 2001

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CommonLit | Local Children's Reactions to 9-11 Tragedy

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This article discusses September 11, 2001, when a series of attacks were carried out across the United States, killing 2,996 people and injuring over 6,000 more. 19 men associated with the terror organization Al Qaeda hijacked four American airplanes: two of the airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City, one crashed into the Department of Defense's Pentagon building in Virginia, and one headed for Washington D.C.

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TEACHERS: Your students are too young to have lived through the 9/11 attack, but that doesn't mean it hasn't impacted their lives. The Perspectives Youth Media Challenge offers them a chance to tell their stories. Maybe they have a parent, older sibling or cousin who served in Afghanistan. Maybe they have seen anti-Muslim sentiment in their own communities. Invite them to share how 9/11 has affected their lives with the Perspectives Challenge. (Preview the curriculum here.)

Updated Sept. 9, 2023
Twenty-two years ago, the United States wasn't officially engaged in any wars. Few of us had ever heard of al-Qaeda or Osama bin Laden, and ISIS didn't even exist.

We deported half the number of people we do today. Our surveillance state was a fraction of its current size. And - perhaps hardest to believe - we didn't have to take off our shoes to go through airport security.

America's involvement in the War on Terror - prompted by the 9/11 terrorist attacks - resulted in a dramatic change in our nation's attitudes and concerns about safety, vigilance and privacy.

It ushered in a new generation of policies like the USA Patriot Act, prioritizing national security and defense, often at the expense of civil liberties.

Teach with the Lowdown

Suggestions for nonfiction analysis, writing/discussion prompts and multimedia projects. Browse our entire lesson plan collection here.

These changes continue to have ripple effects across the globe, particularly in the Middle East, where American-led military operations helped foment rebellions and ongoing warfare throughout the region.

Below are four of the many dramatic impacts - nationwide and in California - resulting from the events of that one tragic day.

I. 'Forever Wars'

Less than a month after 9/11, U.S. troops invaded Afghanistan in an attempt to dismantle al-Qaeda - the terrorist group that claimed responsibility for the attacks - and remove the Taliban government harboring it. Two years later, in March 2003, the United States invaded Iraq and deposed President Saddam Hussein. Although not directly linked to the terrorist attacks, Hussein was suspected of producing weapons of mass destruction (none were ever found). The invasion was a key part of America's newly launched War on Terror, under the leadership of President George W. Bush.

Our military involvement in Afghanistan - which just ended calamitously in August, with the Taliban reclaiming control of the country - was the longest war in American history.

In December 2011, remaining U.S. troops were pulled out of Iraq, leaving that nation in a far more volatile state than when military operations first began in 2003. But the U.S. soon after resumed intermittent air strikes following the emergence of the Islamic State extremist group, which sprouted from the chaos of war and terrorized the region.

In 2002, the Bush Administration also opened the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba, where it began sending suspected enemy combatants. Held indefinitely, prisoners were denied access to trials or legal representation, and were subject to brutal interrogation techniques. There were more than 650 foreign inmates at the facility by 2003.

Critics have long pushed to shut down the Guantanamo facility, calling it a gross violation of basic human rights and a stain on America's image abroad. And although early in his first term, Obama vowed to close it - and significantly reduced the population- he failed to completely shut it down. Former President Donald Trump was intent on keeping it open, and even sought, unsuccessfully, to refill it. Today, Guantanamo has fewer than 40 prisoners, but still remains operational.

After 9/11, budgets for defense-related agencies skyrocketed: Homeland Security's discretionary budget jumped from about $16 billion in 2002 to more than $43 billion in 2011. Meanwhile, the budgets of the Coast Guard, Transportation Security Administration and Border Patrol have all more than doubled since 2001.

Over the last 20 years, millions of young U.S. soldiers have been deployed overseas, thousands have been killed and many have returned home with debilitating physical and mental injuries.

Since the start of post-9/11 U.S. military operations, some 7,000 American troops have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Department of Defense. That marks just a tiny fraction of total casualties in the two conflicts, which have claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan civilians, as well as contractors, journalists, allied troops and opposition fighters.

Meanwhile, more than 52,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq have been wounded in action over the last 20 years. And many more have returned home physically intact but suffering from severe long-term mental health issues, like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and psychological ailments linked to traumatic brain injury (TBI). Thousands of veterans of the two conflicts have taken their own lives.
California impact
California is second only to Texas in its contribution of recruits to the U.S. military.

As of this year, 776 men and women from across the state have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001, accounting for 11% of total U.S. casualties - more than any other state - according to an LA Times database.

As the Times reports, "Nearly 20% of California's war dead were old enough to die for their country but too young to buy a drink. They left behind 453 children."

Four of the 13 U.S. troops killed In the Aug. 26 suicide bombing at the Kabul airport gate were Marines from California. Occurring just days before the official end of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, the attack also killed dozens of Afghan civilians - one of the deadliest bombings in the almost two decades since the U.S.-led invasion.

II. Immigration and Deportation

The Bush Administration created the Department of Homeland Security in 2002, a cabinet-level office that merged 22 government agencies. The Immigration and Naturalization Service and the U.S. Customs Service - both formerly part of the Department of Justice - were consolidated into the newly formed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The agency has overseen a massive increase in deportations; they have nearly doubled since 9/11.

According to the Department of Homeland Security's Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, there were roughly 200,000 annual deportations a year between 1999 and 2001. While that number dropped slightly in 2002, it began to steadily climb the following year. In the first two years of the Obama Administration (2009 - 2010), deportations hit a record high: nearly 400,000 annually. About half of those deported during that period were convicted of a criminal offense, although mostly low-level, non-violent crimes.

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How 9/11 Changed America: Four Major Lasting Impacts (with Lesson Plan) | KQED

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America's involvement in the War on Terror - prompted by the 9/11 terrorist attacks - resulted in dramatic changes in our nation's attitudes and concerns about safety, vigilance and privacy.