It was a beautiful Tuesday morning on September 11th, 2001. At 7:45 am, it was nothing more than a beautiful morning. 

At 8:45 am, a commercial airliner filled with 20,000 gallons of jet fuel crashed into the north side of the World Trade Center. This left a gaping hole in the side of the building, killing more than 300 people instantly and leaving even more trapped. Eighteen minutes later, a second plane crashed into the south tower near the 60th floor.

This was not the end. This once beautiful day would be forever etched in our minds.

“I think I thought it was an accident, I didn’t think a whole lot of it immediately until I saw the footage, then you knew it wasn’t an accident,” 19 militants associated with Al-Qaeda carried out terrorist attacks against the United States.

These buildings had been built to withstand 200 mile winds and a large conventional fire, but this day was the day we saw those buildings collapse. At 10:30 am, the second building of the World Trade Center collapsed. In total with the two attacks on the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and Flight 93; 2,997 people were killed.