Home > Terrorism Reference > September 11, 2001

The eastern seaboard was nearly picture perfect on the morning of September 11, 2001. In New York City, the workday began under a clear blue sky, while in Arlington, Virginia, the military bureaucracy filed into their offices at the Pentagon for business as usual. President George W. Bush (1946–) sat down in an elementary school classroom in Florida and began reading to children. Everything was normal.

But just a few minutes later, the world was turned upside down. Two hijacked planes slammed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, and the buildings burned and burned until they collapsed. Another hijacked plane rammed into the...