Twenty years after hijackers slammed airplanes into New York City's World Trade Center and the Pentagon outside Washington, Americans came together on Saturday to remember the nearly 3,000 killed on Sept. 11, 2001, and reflect on how the attacks reshaped society and tipped the country into an intractable war.
As a first responder struck a silver bell, the ceremony at the Sept. 11 Memorial in lower Manhattan began with a moment of silence at 8:46 a.m. EDT (1246 GMT), the exact time the first of two planes flew into the World Trade Center's twin towers. President Joe Biden was in attendance, his head bowed.
After leaving ground zero, Biden and first lady Jill Biden headed to Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where United Airlines Flight 93 was downed after passengers fought to regain control of the hijacked plane. His final visit will be to the Pentagon, headquarters of the U.S. Defense Department in Arlington, Virginia, to pay respects to the 184 people who died there in the crash of American Airlines Flight 77.
The remembrances have become an annual tradition but Saturday has special significance, coming 20 years after the morning that many view as a turning point in U.S. history, a day that gave Americans a sense of vulnerability that has deeply influenced the country's political life since then.
In a painful reminder of those changes, only weeks ago U.S. and allied forces completed a chaotic withdrawal from the war the United States started in Afghanistan in retaliation for the attacks, and which became the longest conflict in U.S. history.
Former President Donald Trump issued a video criticizing Biden's handling of the Afghanistan exit.
The 20-year milestone arrives as political leaders and educators fret over the thinning collective memory of that day. Some 75 million Americans - nearly a quarter of the estimated U.S. population - have been born since Sept. 11, 2001.
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