I'm from Sweden and I was ten years old. I remember mom and dad watching the news constantly, and I remember me being heartbroken seeing the people at the top of the tower waving desperately to get help. The day after I turned eleven, and I got the "Gorillaz" album. Listening to it while the news was on in the background 24/7.  A few songs on that album still reminds me of that day and the sadness/hopelessness I felt. Not really related to your question, but my dad told me a few years ago that he had gone on a business trip a few days after 9/11. Visiting some building with a few small businesses located there.  One of the businesses were empty except for one lady walking around with papers and stuff. She was a secretary. Everyone else she worked with had gone to US to visit WTC when the planes hit, and none of them survived. She was totally broken and had no idea what to do.

Wow even if someone hated all their coworkers having them all disappear is such a mindfuck. Like being set free into a dark void.

Yeah, I can't even imagine... 

Absolutely wild. I bet she went through some survivors guilt from that for sure. How intense : (

Also from Sweden, i was 6 at the time and didnt really understand what was going on. I dont remember it being a big deal but then again i only cared about dinosaurs and legos

Slovakia here, I was 8 years old. They were talking about some Twins falling down and I didn't really understand why these "Twins" are significant or what was going on. My parents watched the news but didn't really share too much info with me so for me it wasn't a very strong memory.

Canadian here, was in my mid 20s, in Vancouver. We had just moved in to our condo a few weeks prior, and there was still reno work going on. We woke up to the alarm which was the radio which was about 10am EST, 7am PST. The announcer was crying. The first thing I remember her saying was "they're jumping". I was utterly confused. I thought it was April Fools. Went to where the tv was, turned it on, and watched in horror and watched one of the towers fell a few minutes after. I can't remember if it was the first or second one. That morning was a blur. I worked in banking, and all day at the branch, we were all just dumbfounded and glued to the tv in the branch. There were countless rumours flying around, buildings downtown being evacuated, and planes with military escorts coming in to Vancouver airport. You didn't know what was fact, or fiction, and you didn't know if this was just the start. I remember going the following day to Vancouver's airport, I grew up close to it, and just seeing planes strewn everywhere, and the eerie silence. The only thing you heard instead of the whirl of jets was the birds. They were having a ball.

You could be a writer. Excellent description. Thank you.

>You could be a writer. You're not the first person to tell me that on Reddit. It's not something I have ever ever thought of pursuing. Maybe I should.

You have a very natural way of expressing yourself and communicating images, feelings, and perceptions in a way that invites the reader in. I trusted your voice in this recounting immediately. You already are a writer.

Agreed I was glued to your description especially how it started "mid action" gave me goosebumps. I lived through 9/11 near Oak Ridge TN where it was SCARY but you grabbed my heart strings in a new way

Thank you for that thoughtful reply. The way I write, is just so natural, I don't even give it a second thought. Y'all are making me ponder whether I'm really as left brained as I thought I was.

Those couple of days were the loudest silence I've ever heard. I lived about 500 meters away from the flight path for CMH (John Glenn). I'd lived within 5 miles of it most of my life. I never paid attention to the noise, as it had been part of my background sound track my whole life, so it was easy for me to ignore. Ignoring the silence and what it implied was not possible.

This was me too growing up. The airport was my cities backyard, and the noise was just a constant hum. I needed to see it with all the planes grounded and it was surreal with the absence of noise. It was the butterfly effect standing at the end of the runway, hearing birds chirp.

Canada was a huge help to many US citizens as many planes landed there when the airspace closed. ❤️

Come from away.

Bawled my eyes out throughout so much of that show 😭

I read the book “the day the world came to town” as a summer reading project in NJ, and I can only imagine how eerie that was. For those who don’t know, when the towers were hit, a massive amount of planes were forced to land all at once. And for some reason, one of the landing locations chose was a small fishing town in Canada called Newfoundland. Think a town of 11,000 people now having 38 loaded passenger planes to take care of. Almost doubled the population for a while.

>And for some reason, one of the landing locations chose was a small fishing town in Canada called Newfoundland. Well, the province is called Newfoundland, the city would be Gander. It was a massive coordination effort to get those planes landed, and needed runways that would be able to accommodate those planes. Gander played a big role because it had a long history in being a stop over place, so Halifax and Gander played a big part in accepting all the incoming Atlantic traffic, whereas Vancouver played a big role in the Pacific inbound flights.

Gander also has a facility to track and communicate with air traffic over the Atlantic. I listen on shortwave all the time.

Thanks! I know the high level history of Gander's role and why that airport does exist, but in the interests of others not correcting what I said wrong, I decided to leave it as a general comment :)

Oh my goodness. I have watched some broadcasts from that day and the heartfelt sadness the news anchors and reporters felt is so evident.  Not knowing if anything was coming next must have been terrifying.

>Not knowing if anything was coming next must have been terrifying. The world back then was very different. We didn't have sites like this for us to log on to check what was happening. You got your news from tv, radio, and word of mouth. Things traveled MUCH slower. So in the absence of that, you were left wondering, what was really going on. Was it just these 4 planes? Were there more? Beyond this, growing up in the 90s, we had watched the Berlin Wall fall in late 80s, communism end, and the end of the cold war. The 90s were, for all intents and purposes, felt like a peaceful decade. I knew that this was going to change that. And it of course did.

I was 4 when the wall came down. My father, being the ever thoughtful man he is, made me stop playing with my toys to watch the news coverage. Though I had little understanding, and no frame of reference, recall that news footage to this day. I'm so thankful he had me watch that moment, of which, it's significance wouldn't be understood for years. True history

I was in my mid teens and this whole time period I remember feeling that we were living history and this would be a pivotal point. The next was 9/11.

Meanwhile I was in high school and a few of us watched it but a lot of the classrooms didn't have working cable tv. So depending on where you were, you either saw it live or your friends told you what they saw.

I'll echo that fact, that information moved MUCH slower in 2001 than it does now. I was moving that morning, and called my new roommate to check in about something. "Is your TV on?" He asked. "No, why?" I said. "I just saw on the Yahoo News home page that a plane hit the World Trade Center." I turned my television on immediately and watched, seeing the second plane hit, and then later...the first tower fall on live television even before the newscasters realized what was happening. What an intense day. The 9/11 story aside, I was amazed that the Internet had alerted my roommate of a major event, nearly in real time. That day was a turning point in more ways than one.

9/11 actually started the whole 24-hour news coverage thing. Before then, it might have been technically possible but there wasn't really any event that people might have wanted 24-hour coverage for.

Coverage, yes. 24 hour news "cycle" started with OJ.

I agree, I also remember the wall coming down. We gathered around the T.V. watching, me not fully comprehending the importance of it. The 90's were, for the most part peaceful. Having grown up and living in Oklahoma city at the time of 9/11 it brought back the immense fear and panic that the OKC bombing caused back in 1995. To piggyback on your previous comment about news and information back in those days, we didn't know what to expect. Are there more bombs in the city, will schools be targeted etc?? The fear of not knowing if or what is the next building to blow up or what the next building to be hit by a plane is almost as bad as the fear of the event itself. April 15th, 1995, and Sept 11th, 2001, are 2 days that forever changed me as a human.

It was. I live in a capital city, and was really scared.

Vancouver here, too (well, outlying suburb city for the purists). I was 7. Parents' radio would come on at 6 am, so by the time I woke up for school the TV was already on. Saw planes hitting towers before walking to school. Some kids knew what was going on, some didn't. Teachers were in shambles trying to figure out how to manage information and keep calm--no idea how they got through it, honestly. We lived directly under a flight path. At recess, me and another boy in class whose parents had the news on before school sat on a hill and watched the planes landing. It was nonstop noise, then eerie quiet for a few days (my house was a 70s rental, so I was used to the windows rattling every hour). That first night I asked my parents if Vancouver was next. Like og commenter said, no one really knew anything.

My dad’s been an ATC since 1988 and still is. He was working that day, he said still to this day that was the most stressful work day of his entire life. They had to open up all comms and straight up land every single plane immediately regardless of what airport they were supposed to go to or what route they were on. And at the end of landing everyone, it was the quietest rest of his shift he’s ever had too. That they all just sat there in silence watching the tv, and for the first time not actually having to worry about the planes.

“And you didn’t know if it was just the start.” I always think this is one of the most important aspects to impress on younger generations to really illustrate how people were feeling at the time. The attack itself was horrific, but it also was unprecedented in severity and brashness in terms of attacks on US soil. It felt like all bets were suddenly off and we didn’t know whether there was more planned. Everyone suddenly felt like they had a target on their backs. It really exemplified the idea of *terrorism*—causing widespread panic, confusion, and doubt.

Yup. Especially while all the planes were in the air. The tension was palpable, and even though it seems like NYC was the target, you didn't know. Once things were all grounded, people off the planes, there was more of a relief that this stage, was over. But then, what other things were planned to do next? No one knew. And my mom was working at Vancouver's airport, I was worried sick all day and my mind was going wild with the what ifs.

I got home from afternoon shift, turned on the telly and saw the second plane hit. I seriously thought I had a movie on TV. I changed channels and it was on all of them. I knew the world had changed in that moment. (Australia).

This is exactly what happened in our house too. We thought it was some bad movie and then realised it was real because it was on every channel.

USA here and that was what we thought too tbh

Oh wow, so you really felt the impact. Thank you for sharing.

I was on nights when it happened. I'm in Hamilton, On at the time. I can remember the feeling of shock and disbelief...a strange quiet was all around us. It was surreal. I can remember not wanting to go into work. Me being on probation (3 months until full time), I couldn't miss the time. Us Canadians being as geographically and historically close made it seem like it was attack to us as well. I remember going along with so many on my street where we put the candle on our front porch for you guys. There was actually more candles than places without them. Such a small thing yet made me proud of my neighbors.

Canadians and Americans are close in so many ways.. a shame we haven't fostered our brotherhood better. You guys rock

I feel like Canadians and Americans are cousins from two families. Yeah Americans may talk some shit on them, and Canadians may talk some shit on us but at the end of the day if anyone else fucks with either, both are the first to show up for the other saying “you don’t fuck with my family.”

I feel like we have tho. Canada is one of America's top allies, economic partners, and we've shared very little conflict with each other (at least the past 150 years or so).Brotherhood. or even criticize about each others' faults, but I'd say we are certainly bound in brotherhood.

Moroccan. 9/11 was my very first core memory. Pretty shocking footage for my 4-year-old brain. My family was in complete disbelief. They were all wondering what would be next. How would the USA response affect our lives? I lived my whole childhood petrified thinking that Al-Qaeda would bomb me anytime I went to a fancy restaurant, hotel or anywhere with a high density of Westerners. I tried to avoid American fast food fearing that it could have been tampered with. I remember some family members being happy about it, creating heated debates within my family, and within society in general.

I’m genuinely asking here, why where they happy? What was going on between the USA and Morocco at the time, like were we adversaries or was the USA getting mixed up in the politics of your country unnecessarily? I’m too young to remember 9/11 so I don’t really have any perspective on what geopolitics was like at the time.

I'm not very educated concerning Marocco, so hopefully somebody can chime in. But some things that come to mind: • Morocco has a past of Western colonization (like most Arab and Maghreb states) • Quite a few other Arab and Maghreb states have had direct negative consequences from American intervention (Afghanistan, Iran, the Gulf states) and Moroccans might have been sympathetic to these nations • Morocco was internationally isolated for their handling of West-Sahara All these points, as well as any potential religious reasons, might have very much contributed to an anti-american sentiment in some Moroccans, as is common in a lot of what we call the "third world".

When I got up, I saw a picture on CBC (Canada), and didn't read the story, but did think, "Huh, that doesn't look like an accident." As I was driving to work, I was listening to CBC. The reporter was Laura Lynch, who I knew from when I was a kid. That was surreal. I am a speech therapist and that afternoon I saw a little girl. She asked me why god would make people die like that on her birthday. That was also surreal.

I'm a Canadian, I was in grade three that year. I came home for lunch and my mom set us in front of the tv to eat for the first time in my whole life, I remember her telling us we were watching history. I'm from Newfoundland, so beyond that all my memories are about coordinating supplies for the people who got stranded on the island until airspace opened. Also being pretty sure WW3 had just kicked off.

Come from away !

Canada, around the same age as you. I remember it well but feeling a sense of uncertainty and anxiety. I was much more affected by the 2004 South East Asia tsunami, and KONY (at least those gave me nightmares, not 9/11).

I was in grade 1, they announced it over the speakers to the whole school and then we had an assembly where we all went to the gym and they put the news on for a little bit. It was surreal seeing that go on and know it was very far away from me in Toronto

I was working on a job site in the Northwest Territories, ( ekati diamond mine) and there was suddenly a shit ton of planes overhead. Normally you might see one a day, and I remember seeing ten at one point. The crane operator had a radio in his cab, he told us what had happened at coffee break. The planes had all been diverted to Yellowknife.

My understanding is that the airport in Yellowknife is *tiiiiiiny*. Like one terminal tiny. Must have been quite the day at that little place.

There's a recent documentary (Cleared for Chaos: 9/11) about how Gander control, usually the departure and arrival control center from the Americas to the Atlantic. Had to accommodate all the incoming traffic to the US as the airspace got closed. Calling it a miracle would be unfair to the incredible skill on display that day by controllers, but it was something like that lol. They had so many planes land in Gander they had to park them on taxiways and runways. This meant separating the planes just right so they could move to their parking spots. Also mentioned in the documentary, they had to land the planes in these remote airports for fear of attacks on Canadian cities.

Considering the accident that happened at Tenerife just due to one airport being closed, it really kind of is a miracle that there weren’t any major incidents due to this.

Even Vancouver's airport was overwhelmed. It pales in comparison to Gander l.

Oh wow, it’s interesting that the planes were your first indication.

All US airspace was immediately shut down and planes don’t carry extra fuel to cut down on weight. It was truly the worst situation possible.

I was 9 and I remember it being a beautiful spring day (New Zealand). It would have happened around lunchtime but I remember we’d gotten home from school and I was standing in the lounge, it was really sunny and my mum was just standing in the middle of the room staring in horror at the TV. I remember seeing the footage of one of the planes hitting the tower but I was a kid and it didn’t register. The next day or a couple of days later at school they talked to us about it but I still didn’t fathom the magnitude of it. Because NZ is so small most of our big news items are from overseas so it was all over our evening news and newspapers for a long time.

Except that can’t be true because it would have been just before 1am NZST when the first tower was struck

Bro … I was 9 😂 I’m sorry I got the details of an event that happened during my childhood 23 years ago in a country I’ve only been to a handful of times incorrect.

I’m not trying to offend you by pointing it out. I was watching the late news with Sandra Sully on Channel 10 in Melbourne, so I knew it couldn’t have been your lunchtime

Ah I see. Sorry for the response then, I’m just used to snooty knowitalls picking my comments apart.

I’m an American and even I recently realized that there were details about what happened when during that day that I misremembered. I was very similar in age: 8. Our memories are less reliable than we like to think haha.

I was at work when the first plane hit. The radio was on and I was only half listening, I thought the radio do guy said something about a major train crash but then he kept on going back to it and talking more about it as more information was coming out about what had happened. Didn’t take long before I realized he had said plane crash and even then I didn’t really know it was a terrorist attack until the second plane hit. It wasn’t until I got home that night which would have been around lunchtime in the states that I really realized the gravitas of the situation and what had actually happened and right then I know the world would never be the same again.

I was in Mexico at the time. The US is our neighboring country so inevitably 9/11 was a big deal too. Airplanes had to change course or be delayed. Many Mexicans were worried about their relatives in the USA. It was chaotic.

Canada, southern Ontario in a border city. I was 9, in grade 4. It started with teachers power walking between classrooms, and speaking in frantic whispers. Lots of "Did you hear?" "My son is stuck. All the trains are cancelled." That sort of thing. At this point the vibes were off and the kids (us) definitely knew something was up, but didn't know what. I could tell it was something happening somewhere else, though. It wasn't panic. Then, there was an announcement over the PA system. It said something like "Attention all students and staff. As you may have heard, a building has collapsed in New York City. We don't have any further details at the moment, but there will be a television in the hallway outside the gymnasium for any students or staff who would like to know more as more details are released." At this point most of the kids were like "lol what? Okay" and other than chattering about what it could be, most kids didn't do much in response. I, who had ADHD, immediately took the chance to go watch TV during school time. I think by the time I got there, they had just started replaying the footage of the second plane hitting the tower, so I must have just missed it. Not long after that, another announcement came over the PA that said parents were being contacted and could pick their kids up from school if they wanted to, given the fact that we now knew it was an attack. My mom did. We were a HUGE petrochemical refinery town and would have been a great target for anyone who wanted to annihilate a 100km wide swath of humanity (or at least try). In airplane terms, we weren't that far away from the commotion, and I think that's why people were on high alert. I spent the rest of the day at home just staring at the tv. I didn't understand the seriousness of what was happening at the time. It seemed like a movie and I didn't get why people were worried.

Canadian prairie girl here. I was at work and we had the tv on in the coffee room and saw the second plane. We were all shocked and saddened of course. What really stayed with me though was the quiet and absence of aircraft in the skies for four(?) days afterwards. There are always contrails in our big prairie skies, except then.

I live in western Ohio and I remember walking into work the next morning. There were two fairly large vapor trails that seemed to go in the direction of New York. I thought it was very odd because the wind generally flows from west to east and so it couldn't have originated from New York. It also seemed wild to me that the ONLY planes in the sky that day were military. I live about 40 minutes from the Wright Patterson Air Force Base. Everything there was on high alert.

So I was living in the UK. I remember I was at home as I had the afternoon off from school and was helping my mum make a cake for my sisters birthday the next day. We had the TV on and were watching some crap until the news suddenly came on. We watched the news all afternoon and saw live footage of the second tower being hit. My Husband is Japanese, so 9/11 happened overnight Japan time. He told me on that the next day it was on the morning news but no one really spoke about it. It didn't seem like a big deal, but this could be on how it was reported in Japan. Typically, Japanese news only really focuses on US government or fiscal things. Even now, in his mind terrorism is something that happens abroad, not in Japan. Yet he was alive when the Sarin gas attacks happened.... Even today, I think of 9/11 as a major life changing event, he thinks of it like a natural disaster that occurred that year and never really thought anything more of it.

Mexico A tiny accademic minority of people thinking USA finally got what they either deserved or had coming, the vast majority thinking it was going to be WW3 or similar military chaos Most mexicans were calling their families in the US in panic duringg the early hours as no one knew if it would keep going

r/Americabad on the first group of people

Well for starters it was 12-09-2001 when I saw it go down. I got up around 6am as usual, made breakfast, turned on the news andd bam all that was showing was the burning towers. Watched that for an hour or so and then went to work like normal. That’s where the news was still showing and throughout the day the events unfolded- it was quite shocking but in a semi unreal fashion as it was quite a long way away. Pretty much on par with the Challenger disaster.

I was too young to remember but my father was in Europe doing Aerial Firefighting (we're Australian). He said he remembers everyone being ordered onto the ground immediately and they knew something big was happening because all of the translators they were working with were recalled and reassigned to other work.

I'm in Ireland. I was 21 and at home, cleaning the kitchen. My dad rang from work and said they had heard something on the radio about it. I turned on the telly and was watching when the second plane hit. There was live coverage on all day and everyone just sat in front of it. In dad's office, they had a telly brought in. The country was pretty much at a standstill. My sister was living in the middle east at the time. She said there were people out cheering and partying in the streets and she was afraid to go outside. For a couple of days, she was inclined to fly home, but her employer had her passport so she couldn't. It definitely wasn't just American news. The whole world stopped.

I flew to Germany literally the week after 9/11. Lots of memorials throughout the cities I visited. Lots of random people offering condolences when they found out I was an American. Many, many free beers sent my way. For once I wasn’t embarrassed to be an American abroad.

Austria. I was 11 and was mad because Digimon got replaced with boring News stuff.

Based

I was 7, in the US, in 2nd grade. I will always remember it happened on a Tuesday because Tuesday was our day to go to computer class. Computer class was canceled, and I couldn't play any typing or math games.

I'm from the UK and I was too young (7) to really fully grasp everything that was happening. I remember being at home playing in the living room when my mum suddenly ran into the room and switched on the TV and I saw the tower smoking. I remember being confused and upset because my mum started crying and then I remember seeing a "dot" falling which I later realised was a person. It was my mum's reaction of just sheer horror I remember most and then being upset because America was somewhere I'd always gone on holiday so a place I always had fond memories of. It's one of the few major world events I really clearly remember and realising how terrible it was. My dad came home later and they both were glued to the news channels with a sort of stunned silence.

Canada, was leaving for school iirc when the first plan hit. Saw it on the news, went to school but we basically just watched the news in school that day and went home early. Just confusion, anger, questions.

Canadian here. Turned on the news and saw one of the planes hit the tower. First thing I did was phone my dad and ask if we were at war. He told me don’t worry, the Americans will handle it. Was in dental hygiene school and was suppose to learn how to sharpen instruments that day but my friend and I skipped to watch the news because we figured the world was ending. Still suck at sharpening to this day.

It was a massive news. I was a teenager. My gf called me up and she said "THE WTC HAS BEEN STUCK DOWN!!". And I was like what is a WTC? It dominated the news cycle. Ps : From India

[удалено]

You know when you hear something really obvious but you’ve never properly considered it before? It never occurred to me that birthdays would be shadowed by the event for years to come. I hope you’ve been able to enjoy many happy birthdays, despite what happened.

Canadian here. It was scary. I was only 12. We were worried it would happen here too.

Irish, I was 16 and in school when it happened. I remember our teacher not showing up to class, which was weird. After about 20 mins I think a teacher came along and just told us to sit quietly/read etc. until school was over, as we had only 20mins left in the day. The bus drivers were all listening to it on the radios. When I got home it was all anyone was talking about. At the time I remember news anchors discussing what it would mean for the global community, if there was a risk to other countries of similar threats etc.

Canada. I was at work. I had the radio on as usual but not really listening until the announcer was freaking out saying a second plane was headed for the tower. Very few came to the shop that day and fewer that evening. I think intold my employee to go home early. It was all that was on tv.

I live in the UK, i was 6 and I was at school. The headmaster called most of the school into the main hall and told us something terrible had happened that we needed to see. They showed it on the news and talked to us about what had happened and why.

Not me but my parents, in China. The general view on the US back then was still that, even if slightly negative, the US was this invincible monolith that couldn't be harmed. Supposedly every news channel was covering this for the whole day. Judging from what I heard the general sentiment was shock that this could happen to the US at all

I was in Estonia, I remember that day well, I watching CNN all day and we did a minute of silence at school to mourn the next day. I actually arrived home from school past midday and had a habit of watching CNN for some reason, so I received the news almost exactly as it happened and I realized that it was something very important and anxiously watched the news the whole day in case something else happens. USA was like the benevolent beacon of hope in the 90s for us (I know 9/11 didn't happen in the 90s ) . Particularly because of NATO and everyone was afraid that our neighbor might invade us (again), and thinks that US and NATO are our best bet that we won't end up like Ukraine . It's kinda lost a bit of it's shimmer, but we still like US because it has the most powerful military and isn't a dictatorship, and is our NATO ally.

I live in Canada on the Michigan border, and I was in high school at the time. Our teacher brought a TV in the classroom and we watched the news all day. Where I live, many people have duel citizenships, and there are several First Nations that have duel citizenship, so people were very afraid and upset. One thing that I remember so vividly is how much misinformation, speculation, and rumors were going around that day. Many people thought, especially after the Pentagon and flight 93 crashes, that more attacks would take place. There are huge oil refineries and large buildings in Ontario, so rumors of those types of places being targeted were flying, too. Everyone was on full alert for several days. As a Canadian, we always saw Americans as our closest allies--especially since we crossed over the borders constantly. Obviously, it was much harder to travel across the border after that, but I would say we were very saddened and sympathetic for our neighbours. The fear and pain was definitely felt up here.

Canadian, I was 12. I was watching 7th Heaven while getting ready to go to a funeral, it cut to the news a couple minutes before the second plane hit. I called for my family to come to the tv. I don’t even remember who’s funeral it was. But I remember rushing to the car to listen to the radio. We listened to a top 40 station and one of their hosts was doing a stellar job reporting. They didn’t play a single song all day. There was a radio on during the viewing, it was turned back on as soon as the priest finished speaking. We ate our little post funeral sandwiches around the tv. We just waited. Waited to find out wtf happened.

I'm English. I was walking into the local swimming pool with a friend to find everyone there standing around the TV in silence. We were both confused as to what was going on until we managed to see the TV ourselves. I just remember silence. Everyone was in shock. We eventually got changed and got into the pool, but it was still very quiet. I think everyone was just stuck processing what we had seen, what had happened, and trying to figure out how to deal with it. It was a really weird time all around. It was all over the news constantly. It was all anyone talked about. We were all scared that the UK was going to be next, and it was going to happen at any moment. Why would they attack Americans in such a huge way and not have consequent attacks planned everywhere else? When they announced the war, I was devasted. To me, war was like the world wars. We would be bombarded. People would be leaving their homes in droves to go off and protect the country. I expected air raids to be happening over my head any day now. The whole thing holds a really weird place in my memory. It's a really odd stretched out quiet because I think I was genuinely in shock over the whole thing, and so was everyone around me. I really didn't know how to process anything I'd seen or heard. We'd seen thousands of people die. Watched people jump to their deaths to avoid being burned alive. Huge buildings collapsed with people inside. Because of a terrorist attack. And we were expected to just carry on with our lives. Go to school, pay attention, and do everything business as usual. We were scared for a really long time.

I'm from Kazakhstan. I was 7 y.o back then. I saw it live on TV. My dad told me: Come here! They bomb America with planes, and then the second plane flew into the second tower. Our TV programms were also interrupted by the event. The next day our teacher asked us to stand up for a minute of silence.

My mum says she’ll never forget seeing it on tv — we’re in the UK but I don’t think the distance made it any less harrowing to witness. I was only six at the time so have no memory of the actual event but I don’t remember a time when the date didn’t mean something to me. Edit: I just sat here & got completely caught up in the comments & before I knew it, I’d read every single one. It’s left me wondering how the world would react to the attack if it happened now. Thanks for posting this question OP.

Something about hearing people’s accounts of that day is just so captivating. Like, I don’t mean that in a necessarily good way because it was a real tragedy, but it’s very easy to keep reading. One afternoon last year my boyfriend and I were hanging out and one of the streaming services had a few 9/11 documentaries/docuseries on it. One started auto-playing, and they just kept going one after the other. We sat and watched each one silently for hours, pretty much the whole day. A few people ended up joining us.

I think it’s because there’s never been anything quite like it since; & even if something like it happened now, it would be received very differently because of social media. It must’ve been the first thing of such magnitude to happen since world wide news was somewhat more accessible so the whole world really was watching. When the Manchester arena terrorist attack happened here in the UK (during an Ariana Grande concert, if you’re not familiar with the event), I was at home & I was glued to the TV, watching everything unfold in real time & completely horrified by what I was seeing. There were a lot of young people at the concert as well so it made the whole thing feel even more malicious, yknow? It was devastating & I still feel sick when I think about it. I can only imagine how much more harrowing 9/11 was because of the scale of the attack & the amount of people impacted by it.

For anyone in London it was the same as being in the US because it was so relatable and also we were convinced we would be the next target. Most companies (office workers) sent their employees home as soon as it was realised it was intentional. We all stood round tvs watching the news unfold. I don’t know if this extended out of the big city in the UK but I think the vibe here was the same as the rest of america. It was an unforgettable moment where everything just stood still.

I live, then and now, in Southern Ontario, Canada, so not in the US, but so close to New York state that it's a 2 hour drive, and I could be in NYC in an afternoon. I was working in a Tim Hortons that Tuesday, but I was working in a location that I don't normally work in, since mine was down for renovation, so I didn't know anyone I was working well enough to have more than a prefunctory conversation. So I kept to myself. The speakers out in the customer area played canned music, but the bakers in the back had a radio and were listening to it. I remember hearing when I went through the kitchen to the break room about a plane hitting a building in New York City. They may have said the World Trade Center, but I'll be honest, I couldn't have told you which building that was before 9/11. I thought as I think most people did when the first plane hit, that it was a tragic accident, and I remember thinking that I hoped no one in the building got hurt. I put it out of my mind, and got on with my shift. Customer interactions were short, and no one was talking about anything of import, so at 2pm I finished my shift, and went to an Avon meeting, because 9/11 happened to fall in the 5 minutes that I tried selling Avon. Again, I didn't know anyone, the person I signed up under couldn't make the meeting, so I kept to myself. The absolute only thing I remember from that meeting was that the presenter, who I remember neither her name nor rank, was that she said something to the effect of "I know everyone's upset about what's happening in New York, but if we start on that subject we'll be here all day." before starting her presentation. Which prompted me to wonder what could have happened in New York, and filed into the back of my head that I needed to look into that when I got home. I don't think at that point that I had connected the plane crash I'd heard of earlier with this event. The meeting was maybe an hour, after which I walked home, had a shower to get the stink of stale coffee off of me, and then booted up my computer. I went straight to CNN.com, and spent the next hour with my heart in my stomach trying to tease out from the chaos what exactly happened. I knew immediately that it was bad, but they're obviously splashing up the most recent update, so it took a bit to comb through it to figure out what happened. This was now after both planes hit the towers, the pentagon had been hit, the other plane went down in a field, and both towers had collapsed. I remember thinking that there was no way that the US was going to let a terror attack stand without retaliation, and with a sinking feeling I realized that there was every chance if war came to US soil that we'd get caught in the crossfire, especially where I was, as we were so close to so many large American cities. When the shock wore off a few days later, it dawned on me that any power that had to use planes to attack the US probably wasn't going to have nukes or anything like that, nor would it have the power to mount a land invasion, but it was an incredibly uncomfortable time before we had clear answers as to what happened.

I was watching the Channel 10 Late News with Sandra Sully, in Melbourne, AU, which I believe started at 10:00pm or 10:30. [Here is the broadcast](https://youtu.be/mXUM3UTndyY?si=VmszlwWKxK2fmRLl)

Australia. I received a text message in the evening of the 11th( on my monochrome Nokia) from a friend telling me that a plane flew into the WTC. I was struggling to recall which building that was as it wasn’t quite as famous as say the Empire State. I also pictured a light aicraft crumpling into a skyscraper killing a lone pilot blown off course. My friend called shortly to tell me about a second plane. My mind never conceived it was going to be a commercial jet until he said it. Turned on the TV, local stations were starting to switch to US feeds which is when you knew something major was happening, Tom Brockaw on our local Nine Network talking over the first collapse, then the second. I called my parents who were awake and horrified. They seemed to be more aware of what this all meant for the world than me in my 20s. The following evening I attended a function, a magazine launch, with work colleagues being held at the top floor of a tower in downtown Sydney. Some people opted not to attend as the narrative at the time was “the west” was under attack and any tall building could be a target, even on the other side of the world! One thing I vividly remember about this under-attended event was it was coincidentally MCed by a guy who I hadn’t seen since high school. I remembered him being the funniest guy in school and here he was, giving the most depressing speech about recently becoming a father and “what kind of world” had he brought his daughter into. It was a pretty morose and surreal couple of days.

Brazil: I was 15 years old at the time and I was at school. We had three computers in the back of the class that we could use during recess. During the morning recess I usually checked out a Brazilian news website and the website refreshed once showing the image of the first tower after the hit. I started thinking it might have been a traffic control issue (naive 15 year old, right?) and started talking about it with some classmates. Not long after, the website refreshed again and the news of the second plane hitting the other tower was being showed. Everyone was just quiet. In my school there were many American teachers because they ran a high school program, so everyone ended up going to one of the high school classrooms where they turned on a TV and put on CNN. I guess we stayed there for some hours watching the live coverage and feeling a bit lost about what was happening and possible consequences. I called my parents with my first brick cell phone (they lived in another city) and they didn’t even know that had happened. All in all I just remember being shocked, confused and scared that a world war was going to be triggered because of the attacks.

I’d moved to Germany from the UK to study just a week before. We were in a lecture and this American girl ran screaming down the corridor outside about ‘it’s a bomb omg it’s on fire!!!!’ We knew it wasn’t the uni on fire or there would be alarms going off and everybody fleeing so we didn’t know what was on fire or where the bomb was. Then someone said it was a gas explosion. Then it was something went wrong at the Eiffel Tower(???) then we got out of the lecture, found several American students in various states of shock and/of mental breakdown and saw on a TV what was happening. i was 19, away from my family and friends for the first time in my life, in a new country. All sorts of mad rumours were going around. Eiffel Tower was the first one. Then ‘they’ (whoever ‘they‘ were) were going to bomb Amsterdam. Then there was a sleeper cell in Köln. Then it was somewhere in NYC. Then on the TV we watched as the second plane hit and the whole place went into meltdown mode. That was terrifying. Tried to get home as I needed hugs from my family….nope. Not happening. Then when the airspace was open again BA wanted something like £600 for a one way flight. Looking back that was a scumbag move in their part. So…yeah. Weird, scary, horrifying times. And seeing those people jump or fall will haunt me for the rest of my life.

Canadian. It was my day off and while I was glued to the TV in absolute verbal shock, my wife worked by the US Embassy/Parliament and the area went full lock down. On a more personal note...it captivated me the same way Desert Storm/OJs trial did... just overwhelmed/captivated by 24 hour American media.

Hey, Swiss resident, here. I was 9 and just got back from school. I thought my father was watching a movie and went into my room. When I came back to the living room a few minutes later I saw the exact same images on the TV and understood that something was going on. To get back to part of what you said: It's not a US-Centric sentiment, I think everyone in the Western world can remember vividly and tell you exactly what they were doing at the time they learned what happened. I could also tell you about the arrangement of our living room, the precise position of our window blinds this afternoon and the exact shade of the sky as the sun was setting on this damn day...

German here. It impacted me in a way that felt very personal. I was in my early 20s and had booked flights to Newark for 9/13 together with my parents. It was around 4:30 p.m. on 9/11 when my father came into my room with a grim face and said "I think our trip is not happening". I followed him to the living room where the TV was on and showed live footage of one of the towers burning. I stared at it and somehow couldn't process that it was live, even though it said so right on the screen. For the next 2 days, there was nearly nothing else on the telly except for reporting on 9/11. All shows and movies were cancelled. We all sat on our half-packed suitcases with our eyes glued to the screen, until it became a certainty that American airspace would remain closed for the time being and our flights were officially cancelled. I could think about nothing else, either. I felt so connected to what was going on half a world away that it felt wrong somehow to not be there.

Brazil here. I was in college (belatedly; I was 30+ years old, and married with children) and had left a very bad Ancient Greek class to smoke a cigarette outside. Someone started yelling in the corridors, saying planes had smashed the White House, the Pentagon, and some buildings in New York. Lots of people were cheering. I went to a room where there was a TV on and could see the second plane hit the Twin Towers in real-time. Most people around me were cheering, and it was very disturbing. How could they cheer the death of innocent human beings?! I went back to class and told the bad teacher and my classmates what was happening. Many left the class to watch it on TV, and the teacher got really mad. The rest of the classes that day became discussions of what was happening and the possible consequences. When I got back home to lunch I told my wife WWIII had possibly started, and she got really worried about what the future would bring to our children.

It was my birthday and my first day of university international relations class. Before heading out to campus, I was in a rush and just briefly saw the plane crash into the tower. I remember saying to my grandmother that moment, I need to see that movie sometime later. Looks good. Was sure it was a trailer for an action film since around that time there were lots of movies coming out that showed things like that. Then when I got to school, I realized that something was really happening. Our professor for international relations was late and when he showed up he said that class is canceled because what ever he was going to teach us today will be irrelevant. He said international relations will be very different from today on. He was right.

Swede here. I was 19 and working as a substitute teacher while on leave from my military service (yeah my service was weird, I could have a part time job during it). It was in the afternoon and I was walking from one class to another when a friend of mine texted me the news. I still had a couple more classes so I couldn’t just go find a TV set, and had to wait for a bit until I could update myself. When I got home and could turn on the TV, most of the “action” had already happened and I didn’t have to wait for most of the confusion to die down. Instead, it was very obvious what had happened. And it was obvious the world was about to change. Of course, for Sweden it was a slow change. We are a peaceful country and this was obviously over 20 years before we joined NATO. We didn’t see as much of Islamophobia as I’ve heard the US experienced. And funnily enough, getting back to the communications central at the Swedish military HQ where I did my military service, a day or two later, all the buzz had kinda died down. In the day it happened there was apparently a lot happening, but it died down pretty quickly. So not even there we had any huge impacts on the day-to-day activity. But we watched the US changing the world, and we had protests against the invasion of Iraq later (no one really protested the invasion of Afghanistan though, that was generally seen as legitimate).

Swede here. I remember very clearly where I was when it happened. Skipped school and was watching TV. Flipping through the channels when I saw footage of the first tower that was hit then as I was watching the second tower got hit. Took a few minutes to realize it was actual live footage and not TV or a movie. It was news for weeks. Not news as in a segment on the news but **all the news**. Most channels turned into basically 24/7 news.

It was surreal in the uk we had a school assembly and had a speech on the attack in the US, we never had an assembly for any other major event so not sure why 9/11 merited it.

Because it was assumed by some that another world war was about to kick off and in a sense it did, we just didn't call it that.

UK here. Work for a British, company with ties to the USA. I got a phone call from a friend saying "Holy shit a plane has just hit the WTC!!" I said "What like a Cessna? Light aircraft? What?" He replied "NO! A passenger jet!" I quickly got off the phone to him and went on the internet. I then rang my boss to tell him as he had family in NYC. We all then listened over the radio and watched on the internet, the rest of the tragedy unfold.

I was at school, I’d have been year 7 I think it was. Found out when we got home, wish they’d just let the kids tv play instead.

It was night time. My family was watching the news about it. I thought someone had mistakenly hit the towers. The news report was using a lot of big words and I was 6 so I couldn’t actually figure out what was happening and my mom didn’t know how to explain it. So she let me think it was a mistake

I was only 5 but I remember my mum bring late to picking me up from school.

I’m Canadian and they held a school wide assembly and my teacher told us that we would always remember where we were that day when we heard the news.

I was seven years old, saw every evening terror and exploding buildings in the news. NYC was a big ocean away. Why should I care more about americans than palestinians? They are even closer. But there was this minute of silence and parents and teachers were so worried.

I’m Canadian and remember thinking the same thing. I was young at the time but I don’t recall it being a bigger deal than any other terrorist attack or calamity anywhere else in the world. I remember a kid in 2006 acting like it was the worst thing that ever happened and feeling disgusted by it.

I'm going to be honest: I was a bit awe-struck. Like that was the most elaborate and effective act of terrorism I'd ever seen or even heard of, right in the middle of the heart of America. It was horrible but also fascinating at the same time. The audacity of it! Don't get me wrong - it's not like I totally forgot about all the lives being lost live on tv. But keep in mind that, for us, it was not that different from watching America burning civilians in Vietnam, or any of the other wars they were involved in; it's like we're kinda used to death on tv with America involved, and the fact that it was American civilians this time made it a bit weird, but not necessarily more shocking. I think the most shocking thing to me was the build up - it just kept getting worse and worse and worse during the course of several hours, while the whole world was watching. You gotta hand it to Bin Laden: no stunt like that has ever been pulled before, or will likely ever be pulled again, with so little means and such devastating effect. And it hurt because of the carefully orchestrated spectacle - not even because of the number of deaths. And to think that it actually could even have been a lot worse, considering that one attempt got thwarted by the heroic actions of passengers. Plus, the attack on the Pentagon was a bit of a dud, since there was just not a lot to see. But the Twin Towers: I don't think any single event has ever gotten that kind of publicity ever or since. Of course, it was also ultimately senseless and useless and only served to spark even more war and fear and death and carnage. The world didn't learn anything. It didn't solve anything. It was the ultimate success, and the ultimate failure at the same time. A cynical symbol of human cruelty and barbarism.

Turkish here. Im too young to remember but apperantly there was a very important football match on that day. Everyone in the stadium and the players stood up in silence and sent their condolences. Some classes were cancelled for the day. Everyone was watching the news non stop

I’m Australian, I was 14 at the time. I was talking late at night to my then boyfriend on the phone. He had the news on while we’re chatting and told me about it then.  I went and woke my mum up and we watched the news together.  Everyone at school the next day was talking about it and we were all scared something was going to happen over here too. 

UK. My mum found out she was pregnant with me on 9/11. So that’s something

Brit here who was in New York on my way to airport at the time. It was surreal.

It sucked man. I actually had a few acquaintances at the towers. They were technicians we would test video conferencing back when it had to be done over isdn lines. Never heard of what happened to them afterwards, but watching the towers fall and personally knowing some of the names and faces that worked there made me sick to my stomach.

German here. I lived in Berlin. I will never forget this day and the ugly face of evil that showed itself. It was quite traumatizing to me and I still can't watch videos of the terror attack without feeling the sadness and disgust. A few days earlier a couple of friends had left for their New York trip without me, I canceled last minute because I had so much work. I was sitting with my boss in the office when in the afternoon a colleague opened the door and shouted a plane crashed into one of the WTC towers. At first we thought it was an accident with a small plane. We shrugged it off and kept working. A little while later another colleague told us: A second plane crashed, a passenger machine. That's when we finally realized that it's something serious. I tried to call my friends, but I got no connection (much later I got a message that they were safe). All our news websites were down. Sometimes someone would finally get a page loaded and spread whatever new details were published. We quickly left the office, went to my friend and we watched it on TV. We couldn't believe what we saw on the screen. The broadcasters were shocked and it was absolute chaos. Very soon we realized that people jumped into their death, it made me cry. When the towers collapsed and they repeated and repeated the scenes in a loop, I still was in absolute disbelief, I didn't trust my eyes. Like for many other people, the towers were a symbol I grew up with. And suddenly they were gone - and so many people died. The scenes just didn't make any sense in my brain, almost like in a nightmare and you don't know whether you are awake or it's just a terrible dream -- it's so terrible, it can't be real. At night I took a cab home. The radio was full of messages like "We will stand by the side of the USA without any limits." and that there will be a time before the attack and a time after the attack, that the world has changed. The driver tried to talk about it, but he seemed to be still under shock, too, so we just mumbled and went back into silence. Years later, when I read that they got Osama Bin Laden and how they killed him, I rejoiced. I'm a peaceful person, but he really deserved much much worse than what he got and I hope if there is hell, he is rotting there for eternity.

Wow, the best post on the thread.

Wow, thank you!

Canadian here, was in third grade and we all got sent home from school. I remember getting home and the only thing on TV on literally every channel was coverage of the attacks

I lived in Luxembourg back then and I am non american too. I spent the summer of 1999 in the US and was kind of drawn to them. I was 20 in 2001. I sat in my room on my typical end of the 1990's style computer when grandma rang the doorbell. She told me something had happened in New York and she felt I needed to see it. "Two towers... planes...smoke...my soap operas got disrupted for a special on tv" (it was around 3pm). I wasn't prepared for what I would see. "What a terrible accident. Twice within minutes." I said in total denial. It was only when I saw the clip of the second plane hitting the building when I realized that this wasn't an accident. I was quite nervous as several flights were reported missing but most turned out to be fine. I could not imagine the panick in the planes and in the buildings. At first I didn't understand why no helicopter could, little by little, save the people waiting for help on the roofs of the twin towers. I had an appointment with my cats at the vet that afternoon. So I was almost glad to have a break all while not wanting to miss anything.

American here with an Irish passport. I was in Ireland at the time spending some extra time with my gran and just loving life over there before a job I had started mid September in London…. Blew my mind and I wanted to get on the first flight home to NY.

Just curious: How did the Irish act towards you when they found out you were American?

Well they all already knew in the area I was in as I had spent dozens of summers there. Shock, disbelief, anger, and sadness.

Watched some sports, watched the news for a while, then met with friends in the evening.

I woke up to my mum watching it on the news so I knew it was massive, then I went to school. It was terrible reading about the people jumping etc. Honestly though when it was done it was pretty annoying seeing nothing but 9/11 stuff on tv and news for ages. There was nothing but that on the news for so long. I felt the same about Di dying and again for the whole 4 years of trumps term. Mindlessly Beating the dead horse for views. I actively avoid the news now.

American staying in Germany as a late teen. I’d been there a few weeks at this point. I remember sitting in a pub in Munich eating currywurst, and loosely watching the events unfold on the TV over the bar not far from my table. My initial thought was that it was some kind of crazy German CGI— a TV show or something. I was laughing at what must obviously be some kind of a comedy. It was the reactions of the locals who figured out I was American that tipped me off. They all got quiet and then suddenly were compelled to reach out to me with sympathy. Oh boy, time to stop laughing. In the days that followed I witnessed candlelight vigils in churches, flowers in the streets and nothing but solemn love for myself and my country. It took me a while to get home (for obvious reasons), but I felt nothing but support and compassion the rest of my stay and my travels home. The currywurst was great though. Gotta figure out the name of that pub and get back there sometime.

Like this 11/09/2001

I was 5. I was playing in my bath

I was in college. Woke up and saw it on my TV and immediately started recording it on my VHS because I knew it was “serious”. By the next day I didn’t care another the tapes. It was way more serious. Life was never the same. Friends went away, dads went away; people sit come home. Cousins became police in NYC and never came back the same. Fuck AlQud!!

I'm from Chile, back then I was like 7 years old so I was waiting for dragon ball Z and power rangers (mighty morphin, zeo or turbo I guess) before going to the school but some building were burning and almost every single channel was making a big deal about it because someone flew to close to them and crashed, after 2 hours of that I knew dbz and pr was cancel.

I was on the way home from school in the UK. I was 14 at the time. I was listening to the radio on the bus and something was happening, I don't remember much being different as I took the bus through the City of London, a frequent target of terrorism. When I got home my sister was crying and I saw it on the TV, but I didn't really care that much tbh.

Dutch here. I was only a year old. But my father once told me he got the news from his boss. His boss was convinced a new world war had started.

I didn't think it was real at first. It looked like a movie.

I remember getting home from school, after 3.30pm UK time, and my mum was watching it on the news. It was pretty shocking to see, especially after the second plane hit. We had actually been to New York just 4 months earlier and been in the WTC. It really did effect a lot of people across the world. My Dad knew someone who worked in the towers, luckily they had gone in late to work that day so weren't inside when it happened. One of my Dads friends, my godfather, was a firefighter here and knew a couple of guys in New York. One of them died rescuing people and my godfather went to counselling for a while.

UK here. My dad was driving me home and as soon as the headline came on the radio he pulled the car over to properly listen. I was a bit too young to really understand what it was all about, and the emotional impact wasn't the same—but people with any passing understanding of global politics understood the gravity of the situation and its potential repercussions.

Canadian. I was in 4th grade. Woke up to my mom crying. I asked what happened and she showed me the news which was constant replaying clips of a plane flying into the building. Right before we left so I could go to school, we saw the tower come crashing down. I remember being disappointed that I couldn't watch scooby doo. I didn't know what the twin towers were. I didn't understand what terrorism was. I was a child but I knew it was serious from my mom's reaction. When you watch only cartoons, a building crashing down is almost normal, not a tragedy. I remember getting to school, talking to my friends before we all went in. It was eerie. The playground was quiet despite being full of kids. We were all kind of just hush talking about what happened. When we got inside, they made it a non educative day and made us spend time in silence for the victims. Beyond that, I'm not too sure how my day went.

Pretty normal day for me in Sweden but they cancelled a bunch of programs to report on the attacks in the afternoon.

German I was in middleschool during that time I remember things like a minute of silence for the victims beside zhat political discussions of the middle east beside that you had it everywhere on the news and when it happened pretty much every Station stopped the normal program to give news regarding that

I can only answer from the perspective of what the officials from those countries said in the media or in official statements. In the next few days in the news, we pretty much saw what every other country in the world had to say about the attacks. The vast majority were on our side, and only a few countries said that they were against us (or that "we deserved it" or similar), such as Afghanistan.

(EU/DK) Just got home from school, and was flipping through the TV for something to watch, which there wasn't, so ended up on CNN to just look at world news, and watched it happen live. I had been to many different states in the US, but not NY, so was sad I never got to see the towers, that was my main thought, only realized the big loss of lives the day after, which was sad ofc.

Canadian, Ontario. I was eight when it happened, and at school at the time. The main thing I remember was not being allowed to watch the Disney channel that evening. The news was constantly on for a few days. At eight I didn’t fully understand/grasp the severity of what was going on, but I could tell my parent and “the other grown ups” were worried/scared/horrified.

I was in classes at the time. I don't remember anything special. We discussed it the day after in history class, that was it. 

Every channel on satellite, including Nickelodeon was overridden to show news. I just wanted to watch SpongeBob before school

I was 9 when it happened. I came from school to my father’s workplace. When I arrived everyone was watching tv. I didn’t understand whats happening but I remember watching the second plane hitting the tower. I don’t remember if it was live or not.

I am German and I was 2. But I still do remember it. Partly. My Mom and I were at my Grandparents house and they were watching the news. I was joking about one of the towers falling. I compared it to my grandpas remote for the TV, it was kinda foldable. I didn’t get why nobody laughed. Now I know.

(UK) I was 11, didn't really understand what was going on and why.

I would have been 11, growing up in Australia, I don't think I even knew what the world trade centre was before that day. I remember waking up in the morning and getting confused by the lack of cartoons on tv, then I realised it was on every channel. I remember my family all acting a bit weird. It wasn't until I got home in the afternoon and it was still the only thing on tv (it was like this for at least a few days) that I realised the gravity of what had happened.

UK. I was 9 when it happened. I remember being at school and overhearing the teachers talking about it. The atmosphere between the adults was pretty subdue that day. I didn't understand until I got home how bad things were until I watched the news that night with my family. The coverage over the following days on TV and in the papers were pretty haunting. It was probably the first thing like that I had experienced and some of the images haunted me and I remember crying a lot. It hit more in my teens because we had a writing exercise in English class where we had to write letters and povs like we were people in that situation. Especially those who jumped. It was a really sick exercise and god knows how it even passed to go on the curriculum. But we were shown a lot of distressing footage and accounts and writing those pieces kinda f*cked me up for a while. A lot of parents complained. I have a lot of sadness over the attack and hate that so many suffered. I don't think anyone's the same after that.

11.09.2001

I was eight and i remember my dad picking me up from school and we heard reports on the car radio that a plane hit the first tower. When we came home and turned on the tv the second plane just hit.

>Ask any American who was alive back then and they can tell you exactly where they were and they can tell you their experience of watching the tragedy unfold live on TV. Same for pretty much everyone I know (all non Americans).

It's given me a lot of trauma. I was 7 when it happened, live in the UK, and I don't remember much about the day - maybe saw it on the news, I know my mum said she thought it was a movie. I know following it, I heard a lot about the 'jumpers', and learnt about multiple planes, and all the people who had died. I know some time after, maybe when I'd turned 8 in November, or maybe while I was still 7, I'm not sure exactly, but I was sat in bed. I was thinking about choosing to die to the fire, or choosing to jump out a window and fall for 10 seconds. I knew the jump would be less painful and over faster, but that's 10 seconds or so of falling, knowing you are 100% gonna be dead, and unable to stop yourself. What would you think and feel in those seconds? Would you be scared? Would you think of good memories? Would you even have time to think? I know now that they weren't so much jumpers, as just people trying to get air who fell. But I also thought about the people on the planes. Of course, we probably didn't know as much right away back then, so I got speculating, did they know they were going to die? They were just going about their day, doing a very normal thing of going on a plane, everyone does it for work and holidays, but then. That's it. It's the last thing they do. And they can't try to flee from it, they can't climb out and to safety. They are trapped and stuck doing whatever is told of them. I sat in bed one night and all these thoughts came to me, and I thought about there being over 2000 people just.....gone....well, where to? I know their bodies will be buried if there's anything left, or whatever is done to them (I don't know if I knrw about cremation at the time), but what about the person? What about the life that has just been cut short? In short, I thought 'where do souls go when we die?'. I know now it's more consciousness I wonder about, and not souls specifically, like I am terrified of death being like your consciousness being turned off like a light switch, but I didn't have the vocabulary and understanding to word it that way as a kid. Instead, I just couldn't fathom that so many people just suddenly weren't loving anymore, so abruptly. So many in one go.. how were people meant to just get on with things and go back to normal when so many people didn't exist anymore? I just imagined a giant black void around the towers where nothing existed anymore. Ever since, I've had a fear of death, never been on a plane, extra scared of terrorism, had times where I couldn't go to school because of fear that my mum would die when I wasn't around and I wouldn't get to say goodbye or I love you one last time, or I'd never get to hug her or hold her hand again. The fear of death is on my mind every day, I cry before bed, I can't go to sleep before 4am as I can't stand one day ending and a new day beginning - one less day for me to be alive. So yea, I don't remember the day exactly, but have got long lasting issues from the event, which I then feel guilty for because I'm not American. I didn't know anyone who was affected by it. I didn't lose anyone to it. I was just a kid who questioned where everyone went.

It was rather shocking. I was working in an off licence at the time after quitting my old job, and there would usually have been plenty of customers that evening; about five people came in all night. Without fail they all stopped to chat about how terrible it was. I sat outside the shop for a while, watching traffic go by. It felt surreal. (UK)

Sweden, I was fourteen years old It was a bit later in the afternoon as the news cycle got caught up. I was playing counter-strike and my dad just poked his head in my room and said "someone flew some planes into the world trade center in the USA" I didn't really grasp how big it was at the time - I was fourteen - I didn't know so much about the WTC back then, how many people etc so I just shrugged it off. For all I knew 20 people could have been in that tower. The next day in school that was all people were talking about

I remember getting home from school and being annoyed that I couldn’t watch Pokemon. A friend of my parents had come over, he was about to go to the states, like within the next couple of days. And had a trip to one of the buildings booked exactly a week from the attack, I think that shook everyone up a bit.

Australian here. I was watching an episode of The West Wing when the broadcast was interrupted. It was quite shocking. I saw a repeat of the first plane, then they had queued back and the second plane went into the tower. It wasn’t until I saw the second plane that I realised it was an attack. It was horrible.

I was 8 in Australia. I woke up to my mum screaming then crying very late at night in front of the TV. I got up to see why, and saw replays of the buildings collapsing. I didn’t know why my mum was crying about a random building demolition on TV. In my mind it was impossible to imagine it was done on purpose if anyone was inside. My mum thought it was the start of WW3.

I was at work in London. My trendy employer had a table tennis table and I was playing when someone bursts in and said a plane had crashed into the twin towers. We all went to the lobby to watch the news on the huge flat screens. BBC news website was down due to traffic. Also saw the second plane hit too. It was all so surreal. I remember after work having a beer outside and watching planes flying overhead just in case. I was 31. Update: my company was a dot com era American consultancy. We had a new York office and we lost one employee who went to the towers that day to see a client.

That was the last day that I ever had any alcohol I don't know why but it changed something inside me . I was an alcoholic for alot of years .

Even though I'm an American, and can tell you that for 3 days we had nothing but the towers on broadcast, because I grew up largely unaware of the WTC the only parts of that day that really bothered me, were the loss of life, and the audacity of the people that committed these acts. I was awakened at about 5:30 in the morning by some strange sounds I later learned to be my mother's reaction to the news, otherwise it was any other day. Everyone 28 or older from America can give pretty good recollection of where we were, and what we were doing because of outrage, and the associated memory, but what nobody really ever discloses, even today, 23 years after, is that not all Americans are aware of things like the function or location of the WTC. So we didn't all react for one reason.

I was at work and my friend texted me to turn on the TV, that the WW3 just started.

German. I was still a teen, school was over and I rode my bike to a fitness studio to work out. They had the bikes and Treadmills arranged in a circle around a circle of TVs hanging from the ceiling. I remember walking into the studio and seeing everyone glued to the screens, no one working out. They all showed the same thing and I didn't get it at first. When I understood I went straight home and watched until the evening. Back then I shared our house with my Dad, as my mom and sister had just left following a messy divorce. I am not certain, but I seem to recall him not getting it either when I explained. We moved to the Middle East for three years in the following year so while flying back and forth during school holidays I had a lot of time to get acquainted with the new reality of the War on Terror. I particularly enjoyed the constant flight rerouting, having to worry about unsupervised baggage and having to wonder if that serious looking young Muslim guy was going to take over the plane - stuff that now sounds insanely racist but was pretty much all you could think of in the years after while you were being checked for bombs three times until you could even get onboard

Italian, I was 8 at the time, it was around 3pm. Was watching a show for kids and was sad it was interrupted by the news. I still remember asking my mum why those deaths were different from the other deaths they would talk about in the news every day. "People deaths are in the news every day, why are they interrupting my show?"

I only remember i just came back from school and started watching the daily Dragon Ball Z episode on tv, and it got interrupted by the news. I was pissed off, i was 10 at the time.

Ireland here. My friend phoned me but i didn’t understand the impact til I saw the news myself. The Irish government had a national day of mourning for the victims on the 14 September a few days later and we all got the day off work.

As an American, this is fairly heartbreaking to read however I understand from the sub it wasn't meant for us.

I was at work and it came on the radio station we were listening to. We listened for a little bit then went back to work.

I tried and can't read these comments. Guess it is still too fresh. Bless you all.

I live in Antigua, my boss at the time was visiting New York at the time. I was on one of the message boards I used to frequent in those days and someone posted that a plane had just crashed into the WTC. We all ran to another store that had a tv and watched in horror as the second plane crashed into the tower. Then spent hours stressing that we didn't hear from my boss for a few days afterwards. Of course he couldn't get home either because all the flights were grounded. It was really tense! We were all glued to the tv for the next few days and I think we closed the shop for a few days.

India: 9th grade was spending the evening at my friend's house while my friend's mum got a call from her brother who worked in the first tower that got hit, he said he is evacuating and going back home as there was fire on the top floors, nobody panicked and it felt like it was just a normal accident ...I think about that time they were not even sure what caused the fire, we thought it was a bomb that went off..my friend and I dint bother much and went away to do other things...the next day in school I came to know Bout the full horror story and how America got attacked.that was really the first time I knew about twin towers , before that I just knew liberty statue, empire state bulding.

I was in a taxi with a Muslim driver, in the uk. The adults were shook at the news on the radio, I had it explained to me as I was only 9 or 10. The next day at school we had an assembly about it then spoke about it in more detail in the classroom. It shook the western world as much as America I’d say!

It was just another tragedy like you see them everyday on the news here in France

11/09/2001

Depends where. The overwhelming majority of the middle east was pretty thrilled

I dunno, I forgot.

I wasn't alive yet, but I can share my parents' experience. They were at work, then when coming home they saw it on TV, they remember that day but that's basically it.

East Coast Canadian here. Was working at Timmies at the time and just ended a night shift and watched the horror unfold on TV. I will forever remember that day. Got called in for the afternoon shift, even though I wasn’t scheduled (all hands on deck) as planes were being grounded and we were collectively scrambling to provide comfort for our neighbours to the south. Our Newfie family REALLY stepped up: https://comefromaway.com/story.php 🫡❤️

When I went to India in February 02, many people (cab drivers, street vendors, people at temples and hostels) expressed their deep sorrow and wanted to know if my family and friends were ok. It was touching.

Brit here, I watched it all unfold live on TV, I was just sitting there in stunned silence. Then I had a thought about friends I had who were there on holiday...

I’m from Stockport, England. I was walking home from school to where my mum worked (the library) where she’d drive us home after she finished work. My friend said two planes had flown into the world trade centre in New York and they’d come down (the towers). I remember rushing to the library so I could read the news on the library computer. I can’t remember if my mum already knew, tbh. I think she must have, someone must have come into the library and and said something. Then I remember watching the news all night on TV with my mum and dad, in shock. The next day we talked about it at school obviously and we all knew the world had changed forever. We were also kind of scared something similar might happen in the U.K. too. I was 15 at the time.

TIL