September 11, 2001 attacks
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The September 11, 2001 attacks were four attacks by terrorists that happened on the same day. By the official account, people in the group al-Qaeda took over four airplanes and crashed three of them into buildings in the United States. Nearly 3,000 people died.
The four airplanes were:
- American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center
- United Airlines Flight 175, which crashed into the south tower of the World Trade Center
- American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon
- United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed into the ground. The terrorists wanted to crash the plane into either the U.S. Capitol Building or the White House. The passengers tried to take over the plane, and the terrorists crashed the plane early when their plan failed.
Everyone on all four planes died, including all 19 terrorists. Both towers of the World Trade Center fell and were destroyed. Thousands of people in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon also died. This was the first big attack by non-Americans on the United States mainland since 1814.
Many conspiracy theories have appeared which say that certain people in the United States government knew about the attacks beforehand, or even played a part in making them happen.
After the attack, the U.S. blamed al-Qaeda, and began a "War on Terror". The leader of al-Qaeda was named Osama bin Laden, and he lived in the country of Afghanistan. The U.S. told the government of Afghanistan, called the Taliban, to turn bin Laden over to the U.S., but they would not do this. They claimed they did not know where he was. The U.S. then went to war against Afghanistan.
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