Today is the 11th anniversary of one of the darkest days in American history. The day that 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four U-S passenger planes and flew them into the World Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon. The destination of the fourth plane will never be known, but theories were it was headed to the Capitol Building or the White House or possibly a nuclear power plant. That plane crashed in a Pennsylvania field. All told, an estimated 3,000 people were killed and thousands injured.

Some things you may not have known about the attacks. 20 people were pulled from the World Trade Center rubble alive. Two of them were Port Authority policemen who were buried in debris around a freight elevator. One of them for 13 hours, the other for 21 hours. Two victims were on the 64th floor of the North Tower when the building was hit. One of them found himself on top of a pile of rubble. The other was buried in the rubble and found more than a day later. Her leg was crushed but she recovered.

Four people in the South Tower, above where the plane struck somehow made it out alive. One of them was thrown against a wall on impact, but immediately went to an exit and found his way down from the 81st floor. He got out of the building just as it collapsed.

The fires burned for 99 days before they were completely put out. The last fire was finally extinguished on December 19th.

One engine from one of the planes survived the impact with the building, the explosion and the collapse of the Towers.

What happened to the more than 185,000 tons of steel from the Twin Towers? Most of it was sold to China and India. The rest of it was used for memorials distributed to all 50 states.

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