Today marks 21 years since the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center in New York, the worst event on American soil, when four al-Qaeda terrorists took four passenger planes hostage and crashed them, killing about 3,000 people.
Two planes hit the Twin Towers in New York, and two more in Virginia and Pennsylvania shortly after. Ten years after the tragedy, the US military raided the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and killed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
The attack changed the United States forever, and its aftershocks are felt even today, not only by the wounded and relatives of the victims, but also by all those who witnessed it directly on television screens around the world.
Many people today remembered the event and the moment they heard the news. Maria de Souza wrote: “I was pregnant with my youngest when I heard the news. More people fell or jumped than burned. The picture of the man falling from the Mall is stuck in my mind."
Commentator Bart said: “I remember it like it was yesterday. I came home from school and my parents were watching TV without moving.”
Storm Harris said: “My family and I live in Maryland. My children go to school with the children of army pilots. We are only ten minutes from Andrews Air Force Base. I lost a friend in the crash at the Pentagon building and several others were injured. It was a day none of us will ever forget.”
Linda Gruenberg Petrillo said: “I was in the hospital and I woke up this morning to this news on television. We will never forget 9/11.”
Gwen Giordano says she was on her way to work in New York when she saw the first plane hit the towers.
“We continued to the Lincoln Tunnel. When we got to Port Authority, people were leaving aimlessly. This was the second most disturbing consequence, total chaos started. I will never forget that day and thank God I was not in the blast zone and managed to get out of the city that same day. It was incredible."
Bekah Adkins says she was at home behind a fire station: "When the first tower was hit my house started shaking with planes taking off from the Hampton Roads area."
Theresa Dwulit was teaching at a university in Manhattan when the planes hit, she says: "I'll never forget trying to get home that day, walking through the smoke and the rubble of the towers."
Holly Harris said: “I was teaching at university. A student who was late came and told us what had happened. The professor immediately left the room, his son was going somewhere by plane that day, but he was not affected."