Today, the world marks twenty-five years since the morning that changed everything.
At 8:46 a.m. on September 11, 2001, the first plane hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. By 10:28 a.m., both towers had fallen, and the Pentagon had been struck. A field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, held the wreckage of a fourth aircraft and the remains of passengers who chose to fight back rather than let another building burn.
In total, 2,977 people were killed. They came from more than 90 countries. They were office workers, firefighters, airline passengers, police officers, and civilians.
The images from that day are burned into the memory of everyone old enough to have watched them in real time.
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But 9/11 was not only an American tragedy. People from across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Caribbean were among the dead. The grief that followed crossed every border that the hijackers had hoped to exploit.
Twenty-five years later, the world built around that grief looks very different. The wars it triggered have ended and the political consequences continue to unfold.
Nearly three thousand people were killed for nothing, and thousands of families were permanently altered. First responders who ran toward the fire are still dying today from illnesses contracted in the smoke and debris of the rescue effort.
Today, after 25 years, the world gathers again to remember the day that changed it.
