On September 11, 2001, nearly 3,000 people were killed, 400 were police officers and firefighters, in the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center in NYC, at the Pentagon building in Washington, D.C., and in a plane crash near Shanksville, PA.
9/11 was not the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. A bombing in February of 1993 killed six people. On any given workday, up to 50,000 employees worked in the WTC twin towers, and an additional 40,000 passed through the complex.
Passengers aboard United Flight 93, heard about the previous airplane attacks and attempted to retake control of the plane from hijackers. As a result, the hijackers dilberately crashed the plane in a Pennsylvania field instead of at their unknown target.
While video accounts of the WTC attack aired immediately, no video footage of the Pentagon attack was publicly released until 2006.
Cases of post-traumatic stress are common among 9/11 survivors and rescue workers. Respiratory problems, like asthma and lung inflammation, also developed at abnormal rates for those in and around the World Trade Center during and after the attacks.
In 2019, the US Senate passed a bill ensuring that a fund to compensate victims of the September 11th attacks never runs out of money — and that first responders won't have to return to Congress to plead for more funding.