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A Day Of Remembrances And Reflection: 20 Years After The 9/11 Attacks

Family members and loved ones of victims of those who died on 9/11 attend the 20th anniversary commemoration ceremony on Saturday at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City.
Chip Somodevilla
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Pool/AFP/Getty Images
Family members and loved ones of victims of those who died on 9/11 attend the 20th anniversary commemoration ceremony on Saturday at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City.

Twenty years to the day a pair of hijacked airliners destroyed the World Trade Center towers, another plane punched a gaping hole in the Pentagon and a fourth passenger jet crashed in a Pennsylvania field after passengers sought to regain control from hijackers, Americans across the country reflected on the events that forever changed their country.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed on Sept. 11, 2001, which not only sparked enormously costly and largely unwinnable wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq, but also spawned a domestic war on terrorism, rewriting the rules on security and surveillance in the U.S.

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People were gathering in lower Manhattan, where President Biden and the first lady were scheduled to attend a ceremony at the National 9/11 Memorial at the spot where the twin towers once stood. Ceremonies were also planned at the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pa., where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed.

See more NPR coverage of the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

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Scott Neuman is a reporter and editor, working mainly on breaking news for NPR's digital and radio platforms.