Twenty-five years ago, news spread that a plane hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City – slamming between the 92nd and 98th floors of the massive 110 story building, one of a pair of structures known as the Twin Towers in Lower Manhattan’s financial district. It was 8:46 am. local time on September 11, 2001. And that was only the first strike by hijackers who used just boxcutters as weapons to seize control of four commercial airliners that fateful morning. Some 12 hours later, almost 3,000 people were dead and the words of then-President George W. Bush would be forever etched into the national psyche: “Today, our nation saw evil.”
It’s a day that 93% of people who were 10 years or older at the time have a “vivid” recall of exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news, according to a Pew Research Center poll released on September 3, ahead of Friday’s 25th anniversary, of what has commonly become known as 9/11. But 10% of Americans alive today were not yet born according to a Pew. That number would include almost all the incoming freshmen students at Northeastern University and other college-age young adults across the nation.
