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9/11: One Day That Changed the World
Terrorist attacks affect communities in both the long and the short term. Learn how the events of September 11, 2001, reshaped the world and sparked debates about justice, identity, and the global consequences of conflict.
Think about the following questions as you watch the video
- What happened on the morning of September 11, 2001?
- Who was responsible for the attacks, and what does the evidence show?
- How did the US respond internationally after 9/11?
- What changes did 9/11 bring to life in the United States?
- In what ways are the effects of 9/11 still felt today?
: In the 2020s, getting through airport security takes elaborate planning. Your tiny
: liquids have to be in the right bag; you have to make sure your shoes or belt or jewelry or
: metal hip don't set off the security alarm. And say bye-bye to the souvenir hot sauce or
: honey you forgot was more than 3.4 ounces. But it wasn't always this way.
: The precise moment air travel (and so much else) changed forever was 8:46 a.m. on September 11th,
: 2001 when a hijacked American Airlines flight crashed into the north tower of the iconic
: World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan. For 17 more minutes, it seemed like a terrible accident.
: Then, a United Airlines flight crashed into the South Tower. It would collapse at 9:59 a.m.,
: followed by the North Tower at 10:28 a.m. Throughout the rest of the day, fire and debris
: rained down on the streets and on other buildings. Hours later, at 5:20 p.m., the nearby
: World Trade Center building 7 also collapsed. And the day's destruction wasn't limited to New York.
: Two other planes had also been hijacked. American Airlines Flight 77 crashed
: into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m., just outside of Washington D.C. And the passengers of
: United Airlines Flight 93 attempted to overtake their hijackers by storming the plane's cockpit,
: crashing the plane in an empty field in Pennsylvania at 10:02 a.m. Every person on each
: of those planes died instantly. They were among the nearly 3,000 people who died that day.
: It was the deadliest terrorist attack ever on US soil. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11,
: the US was reeling- and full of questions. Who was responsible and why? Pretty quickly, though,
: the US identified the terrorist organization al-Qaeda is responsible for the attack.
: Al-Qaeda is an extremist group founded by Osama bin Laden, a militant leader born in Saudi Arabia.
: Bin Laden was a fundamentalist Sunni Muslim who disliked the US because of their support
: for the corrupt government controlling Saudi Arabia, friendship with Israel,
: and general involvement in Islamic countries. Using Afghanistan as a base for al-Qaeda,
: bin Laden eventually declared a holy war, or jihad, against the US in 1996-
: five years before the 9/11 attacks. The group carried out a series of smaller attacks, but when the US
: government didn't respond, they planned a larger event that would finally capture US attention-
: and force it out of the Middle East for good. But, as often happens with huge political events,
: some people became suspicious of the US government as well. 9/11 led to a boom of conspiracy theories,
: with a whopping 42% of adults in the US believing their government knew more about what happened
: that day than they were letting on, according to a survey conducted in 2006.
: Like, some people argued that then US President George W. Bush and his government were responsible
: for the World Trade Center's collapse through a controlled demolition to serve his own
: political interests. Other theories were more moderate: that the government knew something
: was going to go down and chose not to act on that information, which would explain why the hijacked
: planes weren't intercepted by the US military. Those conspiracies lie in some truths -
: like how there were definitely intelligence failures on the part of the US government
: when it came to reacting to bin Laden's threats leading up to the attack. And the US did have a
: lot of interests in the Middle East, and an attack on US soil would be the perfect excuse to invade.
: The 9/11 attacks also made Bush (briefly) really popular; his approval rating shot up from 51%
: to a whopping 90% following the tragedy. But there's plenty of evidence on the other side too.
: Experts with the National Institute of Standards and Technology analyzed the attacks and
: concluded that the collapse of the Twin Towers was caused by exactly what it looked like:
: a combination of impact from aircraft and widespread fires afterward. And while
: US intelligence agencies did fail to take action, there's no credible evidence that anyone in the
: US government was directly involved in the attacks. What isn't a conspiracy, though,
: is that 9/11 set off a chain of events with impacts all over the world. The most immediate
: result of 9/11 was the War on Terror, a US military campaign that lasted around 20 years.
: In 2001, the US invaded Afghanistan, where al-Qaeda was based. Two years later,
: the US also invaded Iraq- but for reasons that were a bit murkier. The Bush
: administration cited claims like the government's ties to al-Qaeda and their possession of
: chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction, both of which turned out to be false.
: But the US wasn't alone in these wars- plenty of other countries joined the fight.
: In response to the attacks in the US, the United Nations Security Council
: immediately passed Resolution 1368, which condemned the tragedy and acknowledged
: the threat it posed to international security and peace. And when the US invaded Afghanistan,
: they did so with major backing from the United Kingdom, along with support from countries like
: Australia, Canada, France, Turkey, Pakistan, Russia, and Germany. The UK was also a
: major backer in the later Iraq invasion, cementing a tight partnership with the US, along with a whole
: coalition of other countries, with the UK, Poland, and Australia sending troops directly.
: But all that conflict came at a massive cost. Over 7,000 US troops alone died during the war
: and it cost the US around $8 trillion. Even more staggering was the loss of Middle
: Eastern lives. For many complicated reasons, many Iraqis and Afghans chose to support the
: US military during these conflicts, and tens of thousands died fighting alongside US soldiers.
: And approximately 432,000 civilians are believed to have been killed as a direct
: consequence of the war- with even more dying from indirect causes like famine and disease.
: Meanwhile, a lot was happening within US borders, too. Like the rise of the US surveillance state,
: which basically means the government started to really closely monitor its civilians on every
: level. In response to 911, the government quickly created the Transportation Security
: Administration or TSA- those people that oversee things like the slog of airport security.
: In 2002, they expanded their reach by creating the US Department of Homeland Security, or DHS,
: a brand new federal arm meant to generally ensure public safety by preventing future attacks like
: 9/11. And in 2003, DHS merged two separate departments, the US Customs Service and the
: Immigration and Naturalization Service, to create Immigration and Customs Enforcement, better
: known as ICE. Lawmakers also turned to legislation in the wake of 9/11. The most high-profile law
: during this era was the Patriot Act, which greatly expanded the government's ability to spy
: on everyday people in the name of keeping the nation safe. It gave the government the right
: to access a lot of private information, like phone calls, texts, emails, GPS data,
: and even cell phone records any time they deemed someone or something suspicious.
: But according to the American Civil Liberties Union this crackdown was pretty ineffective.
: It didn't actually make people feel safer- but it did put certain people at risk.
: Which brings us to another huge consequence. In the wake of 9/11,
: US leaders pushed nationalism, or a sense of national superiority, often at the expense
: of anyone else. Although the plane hijackers were religious fundamentalists, their Muslim identity
: led many US lawmakers and other officials to escalate Islamophobia, or prejudice towards
: anyone associated with Islam, and targeted them through policies and laws like the Patriot Act.
: That rhetoric from the government was powerful and heightened existing xenophobia;
: Americans all over the country turned on their neighbors, leading to a massive spike
: in hate crimes and discrimination against anyone they felt didn't look how they thought
: Americans should- especially Muslims. Even fifteen years later, hate crimes against Muslims were
: five times higher in the US than they were before 9/11. All of these measures were supposed to help
: prevent future attacks. But 9/11 also shifted how extremists work. New transnational terror groups
: like ISIS also formed in retaliation to the War on Terror, using different tactics,
: like online recruitment to spread their message and gain members. All of this
: points to a key takeaway: even if they happen at a specific time in a specific place,
: major historical events don't happen in a vacuum. So, while the common refrain from 9/11 is
: "never forget", urging us to remember the lives lost that morning, it's really important to
: also remember all of the other world-changing results of the day. The morning of
: liquids have to be in the right bag; you have to make sure your shoes or belt or jewelry or
: metal hip don't set off the security alarm. And say bye-bye to the souvenir hot sauce or
: honey you forgot was more than 3.4 ounces. But it wasn't always this way.
: The precise moment air travel (and so much else) changed forever was 8:46 a.m. on September 11th,
: 2001 when a hijacked American Airlines flight crashed into the north tower of the iconic
: World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan. For 17 more minutes, it seemed like a terrible accident.
: Then, a United Airlines flight crashed into the South Tower. It would collapse at 9:59 a.m.,
: followed by the North Tower at 10:28 a.m. Throughout the rest of the day, fire and debris
: rained down on the streets and on other buildings. Hours later, at 5:20 p.m., the nearby
: World Trade Center building 7 also collapsed. And the day's destruction wasn't limited to New York.
: Two other planes had also been hijacked. American Airlines Flight 77 crashed
: into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m., just outside of Washington D.C. And the passengers of
: United Airlines Flight 93 attempted to overtake their hijackers by storming the plane's cockpit,
: crashing the plane in an empty field in Pennsylvania at 10:02 a.m. Every person on each
: of those planes died instantly. They were among the nearly 3,000 people who died that day.
: It was the deadliest terrorist attack ever on US soil. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11,
: the US was reeling- and full of questions. Who was responsible and why? Pretty quickly, though,
: the US identified the terrorist organization al-Qaeda is responsible for the attack.
: Al-Qaeda is an extremist group founded by Osama bin Laden, a militant leader born in Saudi Arabia.
: Bin Laden was a fundamentalist Sunni Muslim who disliked the US because of their support
: for the corrupt government controlling Saudi Arabia, friendship with Israel,
: and general involvement in Islamic countries. Using Afghanistan as a base for al-Qaeda,
: bin Laden eventually declared a holy war, or jihad, against the US in 1996-
: five years before the 9/11 attacks. The group carried out a series of smaller attacks, but when the US
: government didn't respond, they planned a larger event that would finally capture US attention-
: and force it out of the Middle East for good. But, as often happens with huge political events,
: some people became suspicious of the US government as well. 9/11 led to a boom of conspiracy theories,
: with a whopping 42% of adults in the US believing their government knew more about what happened
: that day than they were letting on, according to a survey conducted in 2006.
: Like, some people argued that then US President George W. Bush and his government were responsible
: for the World Trade Center's collapse through a controlled demolition to serve his own
: political interests. Other theories were more moderate: that the government knew something
: was going to go down and chose not to act on that information, which would explain why the hijacked
: planes weren't intercepted by the US military. Those conspiracies lie in some truths -
: like how there were definitely intelligence failures on the part of the US government
: when it came to reacting to bin Laden's threats leading up to the attack. And the US did have a
: lot of interests in the Middle East, and an attack on US soil would be the perfect excuse to invade.
: The 9/11 attacks also made Bush (briefly) really popular; his approval rating shot up from 51%
: to a whopping 90% following the tragedy. But there's plenty of evidence on the other side too.
: Experts with the National Institute of Standards and Technology analyzed the attacks and
: concluded that the collapse of the Twin Towers was caused by exactly what it looked like:
: a combination of impact from aircraft and widespread fires afterward. And while
: US intelligence agencies did fail to take action, there's no credible evidence that anyone in the
: US government was directly involved in the attacks. What isn't a conspiracy, though,
: is that 9/11 set off a chain of events with impacts all over the world. The most immediate
: result of 9/11 was the War on Terror, a US military campaign that lasted around 20 years.
: In 2001, the US invaded Afghanistan, where al-Qaeda was based. Two years later,
: the US also invaded Iraq- but for reasons that were a bit murkier. The Bush
: administration cited claims like the government's ties to al-Qaeda and their possession of
: chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction, both of which turned out to be false.
: But the US wasn't alone in these wars- plenty of other countries joined the fight.
: In response to the attacks in the US, the United Nations Security Council
: immediately passed Resolution 1368, which condemned the tragedy and acknowledged
: the threat it posed to international security and peace. And when the US invaded Afghanistan,
: they did so with major backing from the United Kingdom, along with support from countries like
: Australia, Canada, France, Turkey, Pakistan, Russia, and Germany. The UK was also a
: major backer in the later Iraq invasion, cementing a tight partnership with the US, along with a whole
: coalition of other countries, with the UK, Poland, and Australia sending troops directly.
: But all that conflict came at a massive cost. Over 7,000 US troops alone died during the war
: and it cost the US around $8 trillion. Even more staggering was the loss of Middle
: Eastern lives. For many complicated reasons, many Iraqis and Afghans chose to support the
: US military during these conflicts, and tens of thousands died fighting alongside US soldiers.
: And approximately 432,000 civilians are believed to have been killed as a direct
: consequence of the war- with even more dying from indirect causes like famine and disease.
: Meanwhile, a lot was happening within US borders, too. Like the rise of the US surveillance state,
: which basically means the government started to really closely monitor its civilians on every
: level. In response to 911, the government quickly created the Transportation Security
: Administration or TSA- those people that oversee things like the slog of airport security.
: In 2002, they expanded their reach by creating the US Department of Homeland Security, or DHS,
: a brand new federal arm meant to generally ensure public safety by preventing future attacks like
: 9/11. And in 2003, DHS merged two separate departments, the US Customs Service and the
: Immigration and Naturalization Service, to create Immigration and Customs Enforcement, better
: known as ICE. Lawmakers also turned to legislation in the wake of 9/11. The most high-profile law
: during this era was the Patriot Act, which greatly expanded the government's ability to spy
: on everyday people in the name of keeping the nation safe. It gave the government the right
: to access a lot of private information, like phone calls, texts, emails, GPS data,
: and even cell phone records any time they deemed someone or something suspicious.
: But according to the American Civil Liberties Union this crackdown was pretty ineffective.
: It didn't actually make people feel safer- but it did put certain people at risk.
: Which brings us to another huge consequence. In the wake of 9/11,
: US leaders pushed nationalism, or a sense of national superiority, often at the expense
: of anyone else. Although the plane hijackers were religious fundamentalists, their Muslim identity
: led many US lawmakers and other officials to escalate Islamophobia, or prejudice towards
: anyone associated with Islam, and targeted them through policies and laws like the Patriot Act.
: That rhetoric from the government was powerful and heightened existing xenophobia;
: Americans all over the country turned on their neighbors, leading to a massive spike
: in hate crimes and discrimination against anyone they felt didn't look how they thought
: Americans should- especially Muslims. Even fifteen years later, hate crimes against Muslims were
: five times higher in the US than they were before 9/11. All of these measures were supposed to help
: prevent future attacks. But 9/11 also shifted how extremists work. New transnational terror groups
: like ISIS also formed in retaliation to the War on Terror, using different tactics,
: like online recruitment to spread their message and gain members. All of this
: points to a key takeaway: even if they happen at a specific time in a specific place,
: major historical events don't happen in a vacuum. So, while the common refrain from 9/11 is
: "never forget", urging us to remember the lives lost that morning, it's really important to
: also remember all of the other world-changing results of the day. The morning of