9/11: A Day Remembered Forever
It was a clear Tuesday morning; September 11, 2001, nineteen Islamic terrorists from Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations boarded four fully fueled American airliners. These airliners were set to depart to cities in California. Little did the staff for each of the planes or the people boarding them know that plans had changed. Within the space of an hour, al Qaeda wreaked more direct damage on the United States than the Soviet Union had done throughout the entire cold war, a tragedy seen by more people than any other event in history. (Bergen, 2006) Many questions were garnered after September 11, 2001. What caused this horrific attack and who’s to blame for it? Was this attack forecasted, could we have seen it coming and prevented it? What do we do now and how do we prevent it from happening again? People in America were terrified but at the same time came together in the face of tyranny.
On September 11, 2001, nineteen militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda boarded and hijacked four American airliners and carried out suicide attacks against targets in the United States. At 8:45 a.m. 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 huge, burning hole near the 80th floor of the 110-story skyscraper, immediately 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, eighteen minutes after the first plane hit, a second Boeing 767–United Airlines Flight 175–appeared out of the sky, turned abruptly toward the World Trade Center and sliced into the south tower near the 60th floor. The impact caused a massive explosion that