Americans marked the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks yesterday with sorrow and somber reflection, honouring the nearly 3,000 people killed when hijacked planes slammed into the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field in a shocking attack that reverberates to this day.
In New York, family members of the victims, many carrying pictures of their loved ones, joined Vice President JD Vance and four former US presidents at Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan. The ceremony began, as always, at 8.46am ET (1246 GMT) with a moment of silence to mark the instant when American Airlines Flight 11 struck the World Trade Centre’s North Tower in what would become the deadliest attack ever on US soil.
Shortly after, victims’ family members began reading aloud the names of all 2,977 people who died on September 11, as well as the six people killed in the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing, a somber recitation that lasted about four hours. In a reminder of the time that has passed, some readers were children who had never met the relatives they lost in 2001.
Other moments of silence followed to mark when the other three airplanes crashed and the two towers collapsed. For the first time, a seventh moment of silence honoured the thousands who have died since 2001 from illnesses tied to the toxic dust that poisoned the air for months afterward.
The attacks shaped generations of Americans who lived through the day or grew up in its aftermath, influencing US foreign policy, domestic politics and public attitudes toward security.
But for many whom the attacks directly affected – the victims’ families and friends, first responders and rescue workers – the anniversary is a tribute to the lives lost on a clear blue day a quarter century ago and the heartbreak that followed.
A generation of Americans has grown up since 2001 who are too young to remember the attacks but whose lives were fundamentally altered by them.
The attacks initiated the “war on terror,” which led to the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq that lasted years. The resulting public backlash helped fuel Trump’s rise a decade ago, when he vowed not to start new foreign entanglements – a promise being tested by the Iran war.
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