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The day of September 11 will always be remembered as a sad one for the United States. This year we commemorate 15 years since the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York.

The attacks of September 11 were a series of coordinated suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States. On that morning, 19 Al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger aircraft. The terrorists took control of the aircraft, crashed the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing everyone on board and many others working in the buildings. Both buildings collapsed within two hours, destroying and damaging others around. Terrorists crashed a third plane into the Pentagon building in Arlington, Virginia, near Washington, D.C. The fourth plane crashed near Shanksville in a rural area from Pennsylvania after some of the passengers and crew tried to regain control of the plane that that was heading to Washington, D.C. There were no survivors in the flights.

Altogether, the attacks killed 2,993 people, including the terrorists. The overwhelming majority of the dead were civilians, including nationals from 90 countries. In addition, death from lung cancer where at least one person was found by a coroner to have been caused by exposure to dust raised after the collapse of the World Trade Center.

Some US shares remained closed all week following the attacks and announced huge losses after reopening, especially in aviation and insurance industries. Destruction of the office space worth billions of dollars caused serious damage to the economy of Lower Manhattan district. The United States responded to the attacks by launching a “war on terrorism”, invading Afghanistan to remove the Taliban from a power that harbored al-Qaeda terrorists and adopting the law the USA PATRIOT Act. Many other countries have also strengthened anti-terrorist legislation and expanded law enforcement powers forces.

On 18 November 2006 the construction work of One World Trade Center began on the site of the former World Trade Center. The building was officially opened on 3 November 2014.