Twenty-five years ago, four hijacked airliners were used in coordinated terrorist attacks that killed 2,977 people and profoundly changed aviation, national security and international affairs.
Twenty-five years ago today, on the morning of September 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger aircraft in the United States. The September 11 attacks unfolded in less than two hours, striking New York City and the Pentagon and ending in a field in Pennsylvania after passengers and crew aboard the fourth aircraft fought back.
The attacks killed 2,977 people from 90 countries, not including the 19 hijackers. Of the victims, 2,753 were killed in New York, 184 at the Pentagon and aboard American Airlines Flight 77, and 40 passengers and crew aboard United Airlines Flight 93.
Today, September 11, 2026, marks the 25th anniversary. At the National September 11 Memorial in New York, family members are again gathering to read the names of those killed in the attacks and in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, with moments of silence marking the events of that morning.
A quarter-century later, September 11 remains both a day of remembrance and a dividing point in modern history.
September 11: 102 Minutes That Changed the United States
At 8:46 a.m., American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan. The aircraft hit floors 93 through 99.
Initially, the scale and cause of the disaster were unclear. That changed at 9:03 a.m., when United Airlines Flight 175 struck the South Tower, hitting floors 77 through 85. The second impact established that the United States was under coordinated attack.
At 9:37 a.m., American Airlines Flight 77 struck the western side of the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. All 64 people aboard, including the five hijackers, were killed, along with 125 people inside the building.
The fourth aircraft, United Airlines Flight 93, had departed Newark for San Francisco. After the hijackers seized control, passengers and crew learned through telephone calls about the attacks elsewhere.
They decided to act.
As passengers and crew attempted to regain control of the aircraft, the hijackers crashed Flight 93 into a field in Stonycreek Township near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at 10:03 a.m. All 40 passengers and crew members were killed, along with the four hijackers. The aircraft was approximately 20 minutes by air from Washington when it crashed.
Meanwhile, catastrophe continued in New York.
The South Tower collapsed at 9:59 a.m., after burning for 56 minutes. At 10:28 a.m., the North Tower collapsed after burning for 102 minutes. The destruction devastated the World Trade Center site and surrounding area.
Firefighters, police officers, emergency medical personnel and civilians had been carrying out evacuations and rescue operations throughout the attacks. Among those killed were hundreds of first responders.
Behind every total was an individual life: passengers and flight crews, office workers, military and civilian personnel, emergency responders, visitors and people from dozens of nations.
A World Changed After the Attacks
The consequences extended far beyond the destruction in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania.
The United States grounded civilian air traffic, and the attacks exposed major weaknesses in the aviation-security system that existed in 2001. Congress subsequently passed the Aviation and Transportation Security Act, which President George W. Bush signed on November 19, 2001.
The law created the Transportation Security Administration and shifted responsibility for passenger screening at U.S. airports to the federal government. Airport security practices would continue evolving in subsequent years, fundamentally changing the experience of commercial air travel.
The attacks also transformed American national-security policy.
On September 12, NATO allies agreed that, if the attacks were determined to have been directed from abroad, they would fall under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, the principle that an attack against one member is considered an attack against all. After being briefed on the investigation, NATO confirmed the determination on October 2. It remains the only time Article 5 has been invoked.
On October 7, the United States and allies began military operations in Afghanistan against al-Qaeda and the Taliban regime that had provided the organization sanctuary. The resulting conflict would become America’s longest war before U.S. forces withdrew in 2021.
The attacks also produced sweeping changes in intelligence, counterterrorism and homeland-security structures. Their political and military consequences influenced international affairs for decades, including debates over surveillance, civil liberties, military intervention and how democratic societies should respond to terrorism.
The human consequences did not end in 2001. Survivors, emergency workers and people exposed to dust and debris at the World Trade Center site have faced long-term health effects, while families have continued to live with losses that no anniversary can reduce to statistics.
On this 25th anniversary, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum is holding its commemorative ceremony on the former World Trade Center site. Family members are reading victims’ names aloud, while moments of silence correspond with the attacks, tower collapses and crash of Flight 93.
The places where the attacks occurred have themselves become sites of remembrance. Memorials now stand at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the Flight 93 crash site in Pennsylvania.
Twenty-five years have placed September 11 firmly within history. An entire generation has grown up with no personal memory of that morning.
Yet its consequences remain embedded in modern life, in airport security, counterterrorism policy, military history, international alliances and the memorials where the names of those killed are preserved.
The history of September 11 is therefore not only the history of an attack. It is the record of 2,977 individual lives lost, the people who responded, and a morning whose consequences continued long after the smoke cleared.
About the Author Brad Socha is the founder of The Universal Record, focused on sourced, factual global reporting. Coverage includes international news, geopolitics, technology, and major developments.
