SEPTEMBER 11th

ATTACKS

BACKGROUND

In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, which led

to a long-lasting conflict between the nations. Osama bin
Laden left his home in Saudi Arabia to help organize Arab
opposition to the Soviets in Afghanistan. He began to
develop more radical ideas, and by 1988 he had helped
form a militant group called Al-Qaeda. The group was
largely funded through bin Laden’s inherited family
Al Qaeda militants
fortune. In 1991, bin Laden was expelled from Saudi
Arabia because of his vocal opposition to the alliance Saudi Arabia had with the United States. He
and his followers ended up back in Afghanistan. He also was angry about U.S. support of Israel and
sanctions against Iraq for the Gulf War.

Bin Laden declared war against the United States in August 1996. He felt the U.S. was responsible
for the ‘evils’ of the Middle East, and he thought Saudi Arabia had become an American colony
because of their lingering military presence. He encouraged terrorism
against the United States. The specific idea for the September 11th attacks
originated with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a Pakistani terrorist. He first
presented his idea to bin Laden in 1996, and he was given approval to
organize the attack. Bin Laden helped organize and finance the plot as
well. In 2000 and early 2001, several men who were chosen to be hijackers
arrived in the US and took pilot lessons. In July 2001, the final targets of
the attacks were chosen.

KEY FIGURES

George W. Bush – American politician who served as the 43rd president of

the United States from 2001-2009. His presidency was largely defined by President
the attacks and his response to them. George W. Bush

© Clark Creative Education

 Osama bin Laden – A Saudi Arabian exile who was
the founder and leader of the militant organization
al-Qaeda. He oversaw the planning and execution of
the September 11th attacks, and he funded the
operation as well.

STORY
In the early morning hours of September 11, 2001, a
total of 19 hijackers managed to take control of four
commercial airliners that had taken off from Boston,
MA; Newark, New Jersey; and Washington Dulles
Airport near Washington D.C. American Airlines
Flight 11 had 11 crew, 76 passengers, and five
hijackers. This was the plane that was purposefully
Osama bin Laden
crashed into the World Trade Center’s North Tower
in New York City at 8:46 am.

United Airlines Flight 175 held nine crewmembers, 51 passengers, and five hijackers. This plane
was flown into the South Tower of the World Trade Center at 9:03 am. American Airlines Flight 77
had a crew of six, 53 passengers, and five hijackers. At 9:37 am, the plane was flown into the
Pentagon, the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense. United Airlines Flight 93 had
seven crew, 33 passengers, and four
hijackers. The plane crashed into a field near
Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at 10:03 am. This
occurred after the passengers on board
fought back against the hijackers.

When the first plane flew into the North

Tower, it instantly killed everyone on board
along with hundreds of other people in the
building. A large hole could be seen near
the 80th floor of the 110-story building, and
smoke, flames, and debris poured out from
it. Television cameras captured live images
of what was initially assumed to be a tragic
accident. There were between 14,000 and
19,000 people in the twin towers of the
World Trade Center, and both towers
began evacuating after the first tower was
hit. Hundreds of people were trapped in the
floors above where the plane had hit. Impact of the South Tower attack

© Clark Creative Education

 As millions of people across the U.S. were
watching live coverage on television, the second
plane slammed into the side of the South Tower
near the 60th floor. This was 18 minutes after the
first crash. The impact caused a massive
explosion, and it immediately became evident
that America was under attack. The South Tower
collapsed at 9:59 am, and the North Tower
collapsed at 10:28 am. A third building in the
complex, 7 World Trade Center, also collapsed.
Only six people who were still in the buildings
survived their collapse.

View from the street as the towers’ collapsed

While millions of eyes were focused on New York

City, the third plane circled over Washington, D.C.,
and then crashed into the Pentagon at 9:45 am.
The jet fuel caused a massive fire that resulted in a
partial collapse of the building. Meanwhile, a
group of passengers and flight attendants on
Pentagon after the attack on 9/11
Flight 93 fought the four hijackers and possibly
sprayed the cockpit with a fire extinguisher. This group nearly overcame the hijackers, who
decided to flip the plane upside down and intentionally crash into a field in Shanksville,
Pennsylvania. Its intended target is unknown, but the prevailing theory is that it was either the
White House or the U.S. Capitol building. All planes across the US were grounded as Americans
collectively held their breath, hoping the attacks had come to an end.

© Clark Creative Education

 PRIMARY SOURCE

The following is an account from someone who was working in the South
Tower on the day of the attacks:

I was standing in the hallway outside my office talking to a co-worker, when I heard a
tremendous explosion at 8:46AM. I looked into my office (office wall was floor-to-ceiling
glass) and saw a gaping hole in the South side of WTC1. We had no idea what had
happened. No part of the plane was visible (it had hit WTC1 from the North--the
opposite side from where my office faced).
The South Tower
at impact Eventually word filtered in from somewhere that it was a plane that hit the building. We
didn't know whether it was a commercial jet or a private plane like a Gulfstream. It also
didn't occur to me at the time that it was a terrorist attack. I just assumed it was a terrible accident.

At some point I saw people appear at the edge of the gaping hole. Smoke was pouring out, and while I don't
recall seeing much in the way of flames, it was clear that there was a raging fire going on inside the building. I
saw a number of people jump to their death, desperate to get away from the heat/flames. …

Many of my co-workers began to leave the building immediately after the plane hit. For various reasons, I
decided to stay. This was partially because I believed that it was an accident and I was in no immediate danger.
…. At some point, I left my office and took the escalator in our space up to the 78th. floor. We had a large
conference room there with a projector and cable TV, so I wanted to get the news on to see what was
happening. I turned on CNN. Information looked pretty sketchy, but I decided to return to 77 to inform my
remaining co-workers that I had TV coverage on upstairs if they wanted to come up.

I returned to my office and decided to call my mother. A few seconds after hanging up the phone at 9:03AM, I
felt a violent jolt, and then a falling sensation. I remember thinking that the building was coming down and it was
the end. The impact caused the building to sway heavily. It was actually designed to sway to a certain degree as
the towers have to withstand high winds on a regular basis, but this was far beyond anything I'd ever felt before.

Eventually the building stabilized. Much of the ceiling had come down, and I could feel the breeze from blown
out windows on the other side of the floor. This felt oddly disconcerting since none of the windows were
designed to open in the WTC. At that point I honestly didn't know what had happened. Strangely enough, my
first thought was that WTC1 somehow exploded and what we experiencing was the impact of that.
I found myself outside my office with a number of co-workers. There was tons of dust and debris in the air and
the electricity was out. While I was covered in dust and other particles, I was not injured. We (about 10 of us)
made our way to the stairwell on the NE side of the building.

Upon arriving at the stairwell, we ran into some people who had apparently just come down from the 78th floor.
One woman had a severe laceration on her arm. While the wound was quite serious, it did not appear to be life
threatening. There was some brief discussion about going up (I cannot recall why), but the injured woman or
someone she was with mentioned that everyone was dead on the 78th floor.

I later found out that United Airlines flight 175 had slammed into the southwest face of the tower, creating an
impact hole that extended from the 78th to 84th floors. Apparently the conference room that I had been
standing in just a few minutes before was now obliterated. Had I decided to stay up on 78 instead of returning to
my office when I did, I would not be alive today.
© Clark Creative Education
 PRIMARY SOURCE CONT’D
Tragically two co-workers who I considered personal friends, took an opposite path that day, making their way
from the 77th floor to their offices on the 78th. floor just before the impact. I never saw them again. Seemingly
insignificant decisions a person made that day determined whether they lived or died. It's still something that's a
bit hard to fully come to terms with.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, my wife had arrived at work at the midtown financial firm where she worked,
right around the time my building was hit. The WTC towers were clearly visible from the trading floor of her firm.
While we'd spoken earlier and she knew I was OK, that was before the second plane hit WTC2. She knew I was
still in the building at the time, and she knew what floor I worked on, so at that point, she had no idea whether I
was still alive.

Once we got into the 77th floor stairwell, I recall jet fuel pouring down the stairs. I mentioned previously I was
definitely in some form of shock at that time and not thinking rationally. Having worked as a baggage handler at
JFK airport for a summer (ironically for United Airlines of all companies), I knew what jet fuel smelled like. Still, I
could not put one and one together and make the connection that a jetliner had just crashed into the building
only a few feet above my head and split open, spilling the contents of its fuel tanks into the building core.

We slowly made our way down the 77 flights of stairs. A woman there who worked for me at the time was about
6 months pregnant, so we went slowly in order to stay with her and help her down. At some point, I remember
passing a number of firefighters heading up the stairs. They had a full set of gear on, and they looked weary and
frightened, yet they continued up past us. It's hard to put into words what I feel for the firefighters who
sacrificed everything that day in order to try to help others. Reverence is about as close as I can get.

Eventually we exited the stairwell and made our way into the mall connecting the WTC complex. I recall thinking
that we were still alive and basically were out of danger. It was then that I saw police officers or firefighters
yelling and waving at us frantically to get out of the building, and we quickened our pace.

We exited the mall in the northeast corner, near the Millennium hotel. We were standing on the street and it was
chaos. I was with a colleague and my boss at the time. There was debris falling off the building, and my boss
suggested we get out of the area.

We began walking north. We had gotten maybe 5 blocks away when we heard a large rumble and saw a massive
dust cloud to the South of us from the direction we came. Word eventually filtered up through the crowd that
WTC2 where my office resided, had just fallen. It was a strange and surreal experience. Thoughts flooded
through my mind like, how many people just lost their life? Do I still have a job? Even a mental inventory of the
things that were in my office that no longer existed.

Words with my co-workers which I cannot recall were exchanged, and I decided to set off on my own to try to
get home and reach my family to let them know I was OK. I eventually got through to my family via phone to let
them know I was safe. I made it home a number of hours later. My mother-in-law was there with my daughters,
but my wife was still trying to make her way home. I walked in and hugged my two daughters like I had never
hugged them before.

© Clark Creative Education

 PRIMARY SOURCE

Tim Brown was a member of the FDNY and was one of the first
responders to the World Trade Center. Two of his best friends,
who were also firefighters, died that day. The following is his
partial account of what he experienced at Ground Zero:

On September 11, I was in 7 World Trade Center, when the first

plane flew over the roof and slammed into the North Tower. I
was in the lobby of Tower 1. I saw my best friend Terry Hatton
in Rescue 1 and we said goodbye to each other in the lobby
before he went up the stairwell. The lobby was filling up with
Ground Zero after the towers fell
people who were very badly injured — who mistakenly thought
they were safe when they had descended 70 or 80 floors with severe injuries and they collapsed in
the lobby,

The lobby was full of people who were burned bloody and broken and dying. It prevented us from
evacuating the stairwell. So Chief Donald Burns of the fire department sent me out of the tower on
Liberty Street to go get the paramedics and get the injured out of the lobby. I grabbed three
paramedics and we were going back into the lobby of Tower 2. We were about 20 feet from the
door of Tower 2 and the building collapsed. It was very obvious. It was very loud. You could hear
each floor collapsing on top of the next floor as the top of the tower came down. And we ran next-
door to the Marriott Hotel, which was 3 World Trade Center in the lobby of the Marriott.

And just a snap of a finger it was pitch black and the wind picked up to what was eventually
scientifically proved to be 185 mph where we were. Everything was blowing at you. The building
collapsing around you because Tower 2 collapsed on the Marriott and the Marriott collapsed
around us. You couldn’t breathe. You couldn’t hear and you basically waited to be crushed.

I survived because the area of the Marriott that was destroyed in the 1993 terrorist bombing, the
steel workers when they rebuilt it being good New Yorkers and good American patriots, used steel
that was much too big and so if you look at all the photographs of the rubble afterwards, you’ll see
that little corner of the Marriott that is still standing after the whole thing. And that’s because of
these patriots who built it after the ‘93 bombing,

© Clark Creative Education

 LEGACY

A total of 2,763 people were killed in the crashes, fires, and

building collapses of the World Trade Center. This included 2,192
civilians, 343 firefighters, 71 law enforcement officers, 147
passengers and crew, and 10 hijackers. Search and rescue efforts
continued for days, and recovery of the remains of victims and
removal of debris took several months. This cost hundreds of
millions of dollars.

A total of 125 military personnel and civilians were killed in the

attack on the Pentagon along with the 64 people aboard the
plane. All 44 people on board Flight 93 were also killed. The total
number of deaths was 2,977 people, and more than 25,000 were
View of the Ground Zero injured. Altogether, they are considered the deadliest terror attack
rubble in world history. It is also the single deadliest incident for
firefighters and law enforcement offers in the history of the U.S.

The 9/11 attacks had an immediate and lasting effect on the American
people. President George W. Bush launched the War on Terror and
invaded Afghanistan. Bin Laden initially denied involvement in the
attacks, but al-Qaeda was quickly blamed. In 2004, bin Laden took
credit for the attacks. After evading capture for nearly 10 years, bin
Laden was killed in a US military raid in Pakistan in 2011. Greater
restrictions were put on airline passengers, and many feared more
attacks.

The Twin Towers were replaced by the One World Trade Center,
which was completed in November 2014. Numerous memorials have
been constructed since the attacks. These include the Flight 93
National Memorial at the Pennsylvania crash site; the Pentagon
Memorial in Arlington County, Virginia; and the National September 11
Memorial & Museum in New York City. One World Trade Center

© Clark Creative Education

 REFLECTION QUESTIONS
Answer the following questions in complete sentences.

1. Describe the origins of bin Laden’s animosity toward the United States that led to the
attacks.

2. How do the personal narratives inform us about the attacks?

3. Though most students were not alive during the September 11th terrorist attacks, your
parents and grandparents would recall it vividly. Have you ever talked about 9/11 with any
of them? Do you think it’s important to hold onto their first-hand account of history?

© Clark Creative Education

SEPTEMBER 11th
ATTACKS

BACKGROUND

In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. This

led to a long conflict between the nations. Osama bin
Laden left his home in Saudi Arabia to go to
Afghanistan. He wanted to put together a group to
oppose the Soviets. By 1988 he had helped form a
militant group called Al-Qaeda. The group was
Al Qaeda militants
supported by bin Laden’s money. Bin Laden declared
war against the United States in August 1996. He felt the U.S. was to blame for the ‘evils’
of the Middle East.

He supported ideas for terrorism against the United States. The

idea for the September 11th attacks came from Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed. He first presented his idea to bin Laden in 1996. Bin
Laden helped plan and pay for the attack. In 2000 and early 2001,
several al-Qaeda members came to the US. They took pilot lessons
and planned to take over US planes. In July 2001, the final targets
of the attacks were chosen.

KEY FIGURES

George W. Bush – American politician who served as the 43rd

president of the United States from 2001-2009. His time in office President
was mostly defined by the attacks and his response to them. George W. Bush

© Clark Creative Education

 Osama bin Laden – The founder and leader of al-
Qaeda. He oversaw the planning and completion
of the September 11th attacks.

STORY

The attacks began in the early morning hours of

September 11, 2001. A total of 19 hijackers took
control of four planes. They had taken off from
Boston, MA; Newark, New Jersey; and Washington
Dulles Airport near Washington D.C. American
Airlines Flight 11 had 11 crew, 76 passengers, and
five hijackers. This plane was flown into the World
Osama bin Laden Trade Center’s North Tower in New York City. This
happened at 8:46 am.

United Airlines Flight 175 held nine crewmembers, 51 passengers, and five hijackers. This
plane was flown into the South Tower of the World Trade Center at 9:03 am. American
Airlines Flight 77 had a crew of six, 53 passengers, and five hijackers. At 9:37 am, the plane
was flown into the Pentagon. This is the home of the U.S. Department of Defense. United
Airlines Flight 93 had seven crew, 33 passengers, and four hijackers. The plane crashed into
a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at
10:03 am. This was the result of the
passengers on board fighting back against
the hijackers.

When the first plane flew into the North

Tower, it instantly killed hundreds of
people. A large hole could be seen near the
80th floor of the 110-story building. Smoke,
flames, and debris poured out from it. TV
cameras captured live images of what was
thought to be a tragic accident. There were
between 14,000 and 19,000 people in the
twin towers of the World Trade Center.
People began leaving both towers after the
first tower was hit. Hundreds of people
were trapped in the floors above where the
Impact of the South Tower attack
plane had hit.

© Clark Creative Education

 As millions of people watched live on TV, the
second plane hit the South Tower. It crashed
near the 60th floor. This was 18 minutes after
the first crash. The impact caused a big
explosion. It quickly became clear that
America was under attack. The South Tower
fell at 9:59 am. Then the North Tower fell at
10:28 am. A third building in the complex, 7
World Trade Center, also fell. Only six people
who were still in the buildings survived their
collapse.

View from the street as the towers’ collapsed

While all eyes were on New York City, the

third plane circled over Washington, D.C. It
crashed into the Pentagon at 9:45 am. The jet
fuel caused a massive fire. This led to the
collapse of part of the building. Meanwhile, a
Pentagon after the attack on 9/11
fight broke out on Flight 93 between the
passengers and the terrorists. This group nearly took control of the hijackers. The terrorist
pilot chose to drive the plane into the ground before this happened. The plane crashed
into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing all onboard. It’s not known where the
terrorists had planned to crash the plane. Many think the target was either the White
House or the U.S. Capitol building. All planes across the US were grounded. Americans
held their breath, hoping the attacks had come to an end.

© Clark Creative Education

 PRIMARY SOURCE

The following is an account from someone who was working in the South
Tower on the day of the attacks:

I was standing in the hallway outside my office talking to a co-worker, when I heard a
tremendous explosion at 8:46AM. I looked into my office (office wall was floor-to-ceiling
glass) and saw a gaping hole in the South side of WTC1. We had no idea what had
The South Tower happened. No part of the plane was visible (it had hit WTC1 from the North--the
at impact opposite side from where my office faced).

Eventually word filtered in from somewhere that it was a plane that hit the building. We didn't know whether it
was a commercial jet or a private plane like a Gulfstream. It also didn't occur to me at the time that it was a
terrorist attack. I just assumed it was a terrible accident.

At some point I saw people appear at the edge of the gaping hole. Smoke was pouring out, and while I don't
recall seeing much in the way of flames, it was clear that there was a raging fire going on inside the building. I
saw a number of people jump to their death, desperate to get away from the heat/flames. …

Many of my co-workers began to leave the building immediately after the plane hit. For various reasons, I
decided to stay. This was partially because I believed that it was an accident and I was in no immediate danger.
…. At some point, I left my office and took the escalator in our space up to the 78th. floor. We had a large
conference room there with a projector and cable TV, so I wanted to get the news on to see what was
happening. I turned on CNN. Information looked pretty sketchy, but I decided to return to 77 to inform my
remaining co-workers that I had TV coverage on upstairs if they wanted to come up.

I returned to my office and decided to call my mother. A few seconds after hanging up the phone at 9:03AM, I
felt a violent jolt, and then a falling sensation. I remember thinking that the building was coming down and it was
the end. The impact caused the building to sway heavily. It was actually designed to sway to a certain degree as
the towers have to withstand high winds on a regular basis, but this was far beyond anything I'd ever felt before.

Eventually the building stabilized. Much of the ceiling had come down, and I could feel the breeze from blown
out windows on the other side of the floor. This felt oddly disconcerting since none of the windows were
designed to open in the WTC. At that point I honestly didn't know what had happened. Strangely enough, my
first thought was that WTC1 somehow exploded and what we experiencing was the impact of that.
I found myself outside my office with a number of co-workers. There was tons of dust and debris in the air and
the electricity was out. While I was covered in dust and other particles, I was not injured. We (about 10 of us)
made our way to the stairwell on the NE side of the building.

Upon arriving at the stairwell, we ran into some people who had apparently just come down from the 78th floor.
One woman had a severe laceration on her arm. While the wound was quite serious, it did not appear to be life
threatening. There was some brief discussion about going up (I cannot recall why), but the injured woman or
someone she was with mentioned that everyone was dead on the 78th floor.

I later found out that United Airlines flight 175 had slammed into the southwest face of the tower, creating an
impact hole that extended from the 78th to 84th floors. Apparently the conference room that I had been
standing in just a few minutes before was now obliterated. Had I decided to stay up on 78 instead of returning to
my office when I did, I would not be alive today.
© Clark Creative Education
 PRIMARY SOURCE CONT’D
Tragically two co-workers who I considered personal friends, took an opposite path that day, making their way
from the 77th floor to their offices on the 78th. floor just before the impact. I never saw them again. Seemingly
insignificant decisions a person made that day determined whether they lived or died. It's still something that's a
bit hard to fully come to terms with.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, my wife had arrived at work at the midtown financial firm where she worked,
right around the time my building was hit. The WTC towers were clearly visible from the trading floor of her firm.
While we'd spoken earlier and she knew I was OK, that was before the second plane hit WTC2. She knew I was
still in the building at the time, and she knew what floor I worked on, so at that point, she had no idea whether I
was still alive.

Once we got into the 77th floor stairwell, I recall jet fuel pouring down the stairs. I mentioned previously I was
definitely in some form of shock at that time and not thinking rationally. Having worked as a baggage handler at
JFK airport for a summer (ironically for United Airlines of all companies), I knew what jet fuel smelled like. Still, I
could not put one and one together and make the connection that a jetliner had just crashed into the building
only a few feet above my head and split open, spilling the contents of its fuel tanks into the building core.

We slowly made our way down the 77 flights of stairs. A woman there who worked for me at the time was about
6 months pregnant, so we went slowly in order to stay with her and help her down. At some point, I remember
passing a number of firefighters heading up the stairs. They had a full set of gear on, and they looked weary and
frightened, yet they continued up past us. It's hard to put into words what I feel for the firefighters who
sacrificed everything that day in order to try to help others. Reverence is about as close as I can get.

Eventually we exited the stairwell and made our way into the mall connecting the WTC complex. I recall thinking
that we were still alive and basically were out of danger. It was then that I saw police officers or firefighters
yelling and waving at us frantically to get out of the building, and we quickened our pace.

We exited the mall in the northeast corner, near the Millennium hotel. We were standing on the street and it was
chaos. I was with a colleague and my boss at the time. There was debris falling off the building, and my boss
suggested we get out of the area.

We began walking north. We had gotten maybe 5 blocks away when we heard a large rumble and saw a massive
dust cloud to the South of us from the direction we came. Word eventually filtered up through the crowd that
WTC2 where my office resided, had just fallen. It was a strange and surreal experience. Thoughts flooded
through my mind like, how many people just lost their life? Do I still have a job? Even a mental inventory of the
things that were in my office that no longer existed.

Words with my co-workers which I cannot recall were exchanged, and I decided to set off on my own to try to
get home and reach my family to let them know I was OK. I eventually got through to my family via phone to let
them know I was safe. I made it home a number of hours later. My mother-in-law was there with my daughters,
but my wife was still trying to make her way home. I walked in and hugged my two daughters like I had never
hugged them before.

© Clark Creative Education

 PRIMARY SOURCE

Tim Brown was a member of the FDNY. He was one of the first
responders to the World Trade Center. Two of his best friends,
who were also firefighters, died that day. The following is part
of his account from Ground Zero:

On September 11, I was in 7 World Trade Center, when the first

plane flew over the roof and slammed into the North Tower. I
was in the lobby of Tower 1. I saw my best friend Terry Hatton
in Rescue 1 and we said goodbye to each other in the lobby
Ground Zero after the towers fell before he went up the stairwell. The lobby was filling up with
people who were very badly injured — who mistakenly thought
they were safe when they had descended 70 or 80 floors with severe injuries and they collapsed in
the lobby,

The lobby was full of people who were burned bloody and broken and dying. It prevented us from
evacuating the stairwell. So Chief Donald Burns of the fire department sent me out of the tower on
Liberty Street to go get the paramedics and get the injured out of the lobby. I grabbed three
paramedics and we were going back into the lobby of Tower 2. We were about 20 feet from the
door of Tower 2 and the building collapsed. It was very obvious. It was very loud. You could hear
each floor collapsing on top of the next floor as the top of the tower came down. And we ran next-
door to the Marriott Hotel, which was 3 World Trade Center in the lobby of the Marriott.

And just a snap of a finger it was pitch black and the wind picked up to what was eventually
scientifically proved to be 185 mph where we were. Everything was blowing at you. The building
collapsing around you because Tower 2 collapsed on the Marriott and the Marriott collapsed
around us. You couldn’t breathe. You couldn’t hear and you basically waited to be crushed.

I survived because the area of the Marriott that was destroyed in the 1993 terrorist bombing, the
steel workers when they rebuilt it being good New Yorkers and good American patriots, used steel
that was much too big and so if you look at all the photographs of the rubble afterwards, you’ll see
that little corner of the Marriott that is still standing after the whole thing. And that’s because of
these patriots who built it after the ‘93 bombing,

© Clark Creative Education

 LEGACY

A total of 2,763 people were killed in the attacks on the World

Trade Center. This included 2,192 civilians, 343 firefighters, 71
police officers, 147 passengers, and 10 terrorists. Search and
rescue efforts lasted for days. It took several months to
recover the victims and clear the rubble. This cost hundreds of
millions of dollars.

A total of 189 people were killed in the attack on the

Pentagon. All 44 people on board Flight 93 were also killed.
The total number of deaths was 2,977 people. More than
View of the Ground Zero 25,000 were injured. This was the deadliest terror attack in
rubble world history. It was also the deadliest day for American
firefighters and police offers.

The 9/11 attacks had a major impact on the American people.

Many feared more attacks and were afraid to fly. President
George W. Bush started the War on Terror and invaded
Afghanistan. Bin Laden first said he was not behind the attacks.
Al-Qaeda was quickly blamed. In 2004, bin Laden took credit for
the attacks. Bin Laden hid for nearly 10 years. He was killed in a
US military raid in Pakistan in 2011.

The Twin Towers were replaced by the One World Trade Center.
This was completed in November 2014. Many memorials have
been created since the attacks. There is the Flight 93 National
Memorial at the Pennsylvania crash site. There’s the Pentagon
Memorial in Arlington County, Virginia. The National September
11 Memorial & Museum is located in New York City. One World Trade Center

© Clark Creative Education

 REFLECTION QUESTIONS
Answer the following questions in complete sentences.

1. Why did bin Laden have hatred toward the United States?

2. What do the personal narratives tell us about the attacks?

3. Though most students were not alive during the September 11th terrorist attacks,
your parents and grandparents would recall it vividly. Have you ever talked about
9/11 with any of them? Do you think it’s important to hold onto their first-hand
account of history?

© Clark Creative Education

SEPTEMBER 11th
ATTACKS

September 11, 2001, was one of the

saddest days in American history. A
terrorist group took control of four US
planes. They flew the first plane into
the North Tower of the World Trade
Center. This was in New York City.

At first people thought this was a tragic

Impact of the South Tower attack
mistake. But then a plane flew into the
South Tower of the World Trade Center. Both towers would
end up falling to the ground.

A third plane flew into the

Pentagon in Washington, D.C. The
passengers on the fourth plane
fought the terrorists. Their plane
was crashed into a field in
Pennsylvania.

Almost 3,000 people died in these

attacks. Americans promised to
View from the street as
the towers’ collapsed never forget that tragic day.

© Clark Creative Education

 REFLECTION QUESTIONS
Answer the following questions in sentences.

1. What happened on September 11th, 2001?

2. How many planes were used in the attack?

3. One plane did not hit a building. What happened on this

plane?

© Clark Creative Education