It has been eight years since the simple date September 11 became an horrific watershed moment for the United States and the rest of the world.
This year the annual commemoration of the attacks in the US has been given a new name – the National Day of Service and Remembrance. President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle have called on Americans to carry out community service as a way of honoring “the heroes of that dark day”.
The September 11 attacks were a series of coordinated suicide attacks by Al-Qaeda upon the United States. On that morning, 19 Al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners. The hijackers intentionally crashed two of the airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing everyone on board and many others working in the buildings. Both buildings collapsed within two hours, destroying nearby buildings and damaging others. The hijackers crashed a third airliner into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C. The fourth plane crashed into a field near Shanksville in rural Pennsylvania, after some of its passengers and flight crew attempted to retake control of the plane, which the hijackers had redirected toward Washington, D.C. There were no survivors from any of the flights.
