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Enduring images of 9/11

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Sept, 11, 2001 began like any other Tuesday. School kids ate breakfast before heading to class, and parents prepared for their workday. Terrorism, especially on American soil, was the farthest thought from most people’s minds. But before many could walk out their front door, events were unfolding on the East Coast that would change America, and the world, forever.

At 8:46 a.m. EDT, a jetliner carrying thousands of gallons of fuel slammed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. What began with confusion as to what could have gone wrong quickly turned to the realization of a planned attack as a second plane hit the South Tower 17 minutes later.

Within two hours, two other planes had crashed into the Pentagon and in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. And the twin towers fell. The attacks 20 years ago killed nearly 3,000 people, in the hijacked planes and on the ground, and injured thousands. The attacks forever changed the world.

A plane approaches New York’s World Trade Center moments before it struck the tower at left, as seen from downtown Brooklyn, Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001. In an unprecedented show of terrorist horror, the 110 story towers collapsed in a shower of rubble and dust after 2 hijacked airliners carrying scores of passengers slammed into them. (AP Photo/ William Kratzke) 
The south tower begins to collapse as smoke billows from both towers of the World Trade Center, in New York.  (AP Photo/Jim Collins/FILE) 

 

Two women embrace each other as they watch the World Trade Center burn following a terrorist attack on the twin skyscrapers in New York. (AP Photo/Ernesto Mora) 
Chief of Staff Andy Card whispers into the ear of President George W. Bush to give him word of the plane crashes into the World Trade Center, during a visit to the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Fla. (AP Photo/Doug Mills) 
Smoke billows from one of the towers of the World Trade Center and flames and debris explode from the second tower, Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001. (AP Photo/Chao Soi Cheong) 
People run from the collapse of one of the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center in this Sept. 11, 2001, file photo. (AP Photo/FILE/Suzanne Plunkett) 
A person falls from the north tower of New York’s World Trade Center in this Sept. 11, 2001 file photo, after terrorists crashed two hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center and brought down the twin 110-story towers. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File 
A fiery blast rocks the World Trade Center after being hit by two planes September 11, 2001 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) 
People flee the falling South Tower of the World Trade Center on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta) 
A man with a fire extinguisher walks through rubble after the collapse of the first World Trade Center Tower on September 11, 2001, in New York. The man was shouting as he walked looking for victims who needed assistance. Both towers collapsed after being hit by hijacked passengers planes. (Photo by DOUG KANTER/AFP via Getty Images) 
People flee lower Manhattan across the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, following a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. (AP Photo/Daniel Shanken) 
A jet airliner heads into one of the World Trade Center towers for the second attack in New York.  (AP Photo/Carmen Taylor/File) 
The south side of the Pentagon burns after it took a direct, devastating hit from an aircraft Tuesday morning, Sept. 11, 2001. (AP Photo/Tom Horan) 
Emergency workers look at the crater created when United Airlines Flight 93 crashed near Shanksville, Pa., in this Sept. 11, 2001 file photo. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic, File) 
Julie McDermott, center, walks with other victims as they make their way amid debris near the World Trade Center in New York Tuesday Sept. 11, 2001.(AP Photo/Gulnara Samoilova) 
Pedestrians on Beekman St. flee the area of the collapsed World Trade Center in lower Manhattan following a terrorist attack on the New York landmark Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta) 
-Survivors of the World Trade Center terrorist attacks make their way through smoke, dust and debris on Fulton St., about a block from the collapsed towers, Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001 in New York. (AP Photo/Gulnara Samoilova) 
The twin towers of the World Trade Center burn behind the Empire State Building in New York, Sept. 11, 2001. In a horrific sequence of destruction, terrorists crashed two planes into the World Trade Center causing the twin 110-story towers to collapse. (AP Photo/Marty Lederhandler) 
A helicopter flies over the Pentagon in Washington as smoke billows over the building. The terrorist-hijacked airliner that slammed into the west side of the Pentagon killed 184 people. (AP Photo/Heesoon Yim, File) 
With the skeleton of the World Trade Center twin towers in the background, New York City firefighters work amid debris on Cortlandt St. after the terrorist attacks of Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) 
As rescue efforts continue in the rubble of the World Trade Center, President George W. Bush puts his arms around firefighter Bob Beckwith while standing in front of the World Trade Center in New York. (AP Photo/Doug Mills, File) 
A woman looks at missing person posters of victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City on Sept. 14, 2001. (AP Photo/Robert Spencer) 

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