Today’s college student would probably have been between ages 4 and 7 when several American airlines, routinely departing Boston and Washington airports on the morning of September 11, 2011, were hijacked by radical Islamists and flown into the World Trade Center in New York City (pictured above) and into the Pentagon outside Washington DC (pictured below).
A fourth hijacked airplane bound for Washington DC crashed prematurely in Pennsylvania when self-sacrificing American passengers fought to regain control of the aircraft.
The day is personal to many who lost loved ones that day, including this Institute, who lost an outspoken conservative friend aboard the plane that hit the Pentagon. She knew what was happening and managed to call her husband before she died.
Those old enough to grasp the full horror of that day were changed forever, as K.T. McFarland writes in What 9/11 Taught Me.
For those too young to remember, below is a short History.com video of 9/11/2001 as the day unfolded in New York City: