On September 11, 2001, terrorists fly hijacked planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center and into the Pentagon. A fourth plane, bound for the Capitol Building, crashes in rural Pennsylvania after passengers wrest control from the hijackers. Nearly 3,000 people die in the attacks.

The New York Times reports that day: "In what appeared to be parallel attacks on quintessential symbols of American financial and military power, hijackers flew jetliners into both towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan and, less than an hour later, into the Pentagon, outside Washington. The 110-story towers at the World Trade Center soon collapsed in a horrific storm of flying glass and rubble. The largest of several smaller buildings in the World Trade Center complex, a 47-story structure that had been set ablaze by debris in the morning, gave way in late afternoon."