The September 1st, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center was a major catastrophe in the history of America. Although America was fighting terrorism on foreign soil, America had never experienced terrorism on its own soil. An examination of primary and secondary sources will reveal the historical significance of this event. On September 11, 2001 also known as 9/11 to most Americans, four planes were hijacked by Islamist Extremists. Two planes hit the Twin Towers, another plane crashed into the Pentagon, the top military building in the country, located in the United States capitol, Washington D.C. The fourth plane crashed in a field eighty miles from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (Gard, pg. 22). Osama Bin Laden was thought to have planned, funded, and supplied weapons for terrorist attacks around the world (Gard, pg. 40). Osama Bin Laden was born in Saudi Arabia in 1957 (Gard, pg. 42). His father was a conservative Muslim who had four wives and fifty-two children. When Osama was only thirteen, he inherited about $80 million when his father died on September 3, 1967 in an airplane accident (Gard, pg. 42). After inheriting a large amount of money, Osama Bin Laden started a terrorist organization called Al Qaeda known as “The Base” to Osama and his terrorist organization (Gard, pg. 43). …show more content…
The World Trade Center took seven years to build at a cost of $750 million (Gard, pg. 11). The South Tower was a staggering 1,350 feet high and the North Tower, with antenna, is 1,710 feet high (Gard, pg. 11). Fifty thousand workers worked there every day (Gard, pg. 11). Each floor was about an acre in size (Gard, pg. 11). Each Tower had 99 elevators in each tower which traveled up and down the towers at 1,600 feet per minute (Gard pg.