Published September 11, 2026
To commemorate the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Americans gathered to remember the nearly 3,000 people who died when hijacked planes struck the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.
Perhaps the most notable event on Friday was at New York City’s Ground Zero, where the landmark World Trade Center, known as the Twin Towers, once stood.
Two commercial jets collided as part of the hijacking, causing the building to collapse. Today, a monument and a museum are erected on the site. At Friday’s ceremony, surrounded by two reflecting ponds marking the footprint of the tower, relatives of the victims read out their names, as they have every year since the attack.
Mourners also gathered at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, where American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the building, killing 184 people. President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth were among them.
“In the terrible days that followed the attacks, we witnessed the true spirit of this country. On that day, we were all New Yorkers, each and every one of us,” Trump said at a ceremony at the Pentagon. “The next 25 years have shown us an even greater power of the American spirit to endure, to prevail, and to prevail.”
Families also gathered in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, for a memorial service for the passengers and crew killed on United Airlines Flight 93.
The attackers are believed to have aimed to crash the plane in Washington, D.C., but were faced with a revolt from those trapped on the plane with them. The plane ultimately missed the attacker’s target and plummeted into the countryside. 40 victims were killed.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro ordered flags to be flown at half-staff across the state to “honor the courage of the men and women who stood against evil and ran into danger while others fled.”
The September 11 attacks ushered in a new era for the United States, kicking off the Global War on Terror, a decades-long effort that included the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
There were also lifelong effects on survivors of the attack. Earlier this week, New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani released government documents showing that city officials knew about the risks of exposure to toxic substances after the Twin Towers collapsed.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an estimated 400,000 people have been exposed to chemicals, including carcinogens. Thousands of people are thought to have died from cancer and other illnesses in the quarter-century since the attacks.
