How Long Ago Was 9/11 Attacks?

At 8:46 a.m. on September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. Seventeen minutes later, United Airlines Flight 175 hit the South Tower. A third hijacked plane struck the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m., and a fourth — United Flight 93 — crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania at 10:03 a.m. after passengers heroically stormed the cockpit to prevent the hijackers from reaching their intended target.

The Twin Towers collapsed within two hours. Nearly 3,000 people were killed — the deadliest terrorist attack in history and the deadliest attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor. The 19 hijackers were members of al-Qaeda, a militant Islamist network led by Osama bin Laden, who was killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan on May 2, 2011.

The attacks triggered two decades of consequential U.S. foreign policy: the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, the Iraq War in 2003, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the PATRIOT Act, and the expansion of domestic surveillance programs. September 11 is now a national day of remembrance, and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum stands at the site of the original towers in lower Manhattan.