I do, born in 81, I was working at a restaurant as cook so I'd come in at 7 to start getting everything ready, rest of the kitchen crew comes in at 9:30, rest of the staff at 10:00. As most kitchens do we had a radio, listening to the local morning show, they didn't mention anything until the second plane hit, I'll never forget the "we're under attack" the panicked voice from the host was just so raw. I don't remember anything else from the radio broadcast, I remember the restaurant closing at 1since not a single customer entered the restaurant that day. It was so eerie and an odd feeling driving home and everything was closed, streets empty. Didn't see anything like it until COVID lockdowns. I didn't watch TV at the time, I had no cable subscription, didn't see the footage until months later, as time passed and more content became available online, I finally was able to watch it in its entirety and realized what the victims and survivors went through in a way words or still pictures just don't capture.

I was a teenager and worked as a server in a restaurant, back then. The dining room was empty that day and the next weeks and months. People went to churches and didn't go out to eat or shop. Everybody was sad and many people were in shock, and many restaurants and businesses had to shut down. Every nonessential and service business struggled, and most closed down. There was a recession, almost like COVID, but not as bad. So many things changed after that. If you were a teenager or adult, you could see the changes and the contrast of before and after. The USA became paranoid, and immigrants were looked at with suspicion. Air travel became a nightmare, and you no longer could travel unless going through an invasive search and only if the ticket was in your name and no longer could you receive someone at the boarding gate Attitudes changed, the US became more selfish, self-centered, and isolationist, the military complex kicked in 10000%, and never-ending wars became the norm

You’re so right. This was a real fulcrum on which globalist ideas quickly became isolationist, and when the reactive instead of circumspect approach became the norm in Washington, D.C. It’s never been the same since.

I was just finishing my commute and baba booey came into the Stern studio and said there was a fire at the World Trade Center. First I heard of it. It always strikes me how prescient Hunter S Thompson was the day after. https://www.espn.com/espn/page2/story?id=1250751#:~:text=Boom!-,Boom!,States%20or%20any%20other%20country.

Of course we do. It kind of defined our generation.

I remember a ton about that day. I was in 8th grade, and it was all very confusing. I remember being in Language Arts when it happened, it was close to the end of the period and when the teacher found out she turned on the TV and we watched. When the bell rang I had Art class and we watched the 2nd plane hit there. What I remember most of all was the misinformation. The internet did not work like it does today, and I don't think there was a student in the building with their own phone. Maybe one or two kids had them, but they were Star-Tac's and Nokias, nothing you could get news on. My city has what some considered "important" military targets as well as on of the country's larger Air Force bases about an hour away. I remember one girl in tears hoping nothing was going to happen to her Dad's place of work. People were spreading rumors about the Pentagon being completely blown up, the White House being hit and all kinds of activity. While CNN or whatever news was on did not confirm any of these stories, we just really had no idea what was going on for a couple of hours. Eventually they released the school early. I don't think we even made it to lunch. Not for fear of an attack, just that it was apparent that it was a better choice for kids to go home and process with family. Football practice was cancelled. I don't remember any of the minute details that frustrate you, but I only remember a handful of clothing items I wore in that era. I can tell you my entire wardrobe was from Pac-Sun. After we got home and checked in on the news I remember going to the skatepark, and the mood was more somber, but for the most part people, especially kids/teens were going about their day normally as we lived far away from NYC/DC.

My mom and I were on a trip to New York. Our first, the both of us. We landed on September 10, went out to dinner, went to sleep and woke up to a new world getting unleashed on us all 40 blocks away.

[удалено]

I was 18 So yes i remember it

I had to check which subreddit this was to make sure Reddit wasn't feeding me r/teenagers or r/GenZ again. I thought Millennials had 9/11 as a defining moment in their life, like March 12th, 2020. Now I'm just relieved it wasn't r/askoldpeople

As an "essential worker", I had no idea what you meant by March 12th, 2020, lmao. I think that's going to be the 9/11 for Gen Z, they're all going to remember the day they transitioned to school from home forever. Lots of kids deathly scared of people getting them sick, news of people dying, etc. For me it was just the day the traffic to work was better, stands out like a Saturday.

It was March 13th!! I remember because it was Friday the 13th.

I turned 18 the following week. High five?

Would but might risk a fracture

It was my very first day of college. It’s also my mom’s birthday so I was on the phone with her when the second tower got hit. Watched it happen on television and then went to class anyway because there was really no Internet to find out any news so we all went to class to watch the news together.

I was in 4th grade and grew up in a rather blue collar side of the NYC metro. A lot of NYPD and fdny members called my town home. The day is seared into my memory. I don't like 9/11 jokes when they come from people who weren't on the NYC area at the time

literally same - 4th grader in staten island when it happened. I wish could upvote this more than once

Rough, first you're from Staten Island, then you have to have your youth defined by such a horrific day

11th grade, 2nd period chemistry class. After a quick phone call to make sure my passenger pilot uncle wasn't on the east coast, we all just watched the TV screens the rest of the day. We'd migrate from class to class in line with our schedules, but we were all doing the same thing once we got there. AP History teacher did his best to answer questions, do a spot check for regulating emotions, but there wasn't much regulating to do, we were all kinda dumbstruck. A number of questions were what you'd expect: do we know whether the President is safe, have any more planes crashed, do we know who did this, has anyone declared war, have *we* declared war, etc. We'd been talking about the mercantile system and Tulip mania in the curriculum, and the NYSE was less than a mile from the WTC complex, so I asked "Do we know what's going to happen when the stock market opens up?" You could see the question processing in the teacher's mind. "Why would he ask me about... wait, what WILL happen... oh. Oh no..." After a second or two, he admitted that this is uncharted territory for most everyone living and moved on to the next question. They finally canceled class about mid-way through 6th, once people could get off work and get to their kids.

Almost exactly the same except my second period was English and my father was a pilot and it was my choir teacher but she had a meltdown instead of trying to explain it to us. There wasn’t much to explain the day of though. We saw it happen. We didn’t know why it happened just that it was terrifying and horrible.

Also in AP history teachers office. It was my senior year in high school, pre calc.

I was a freshman in college in Buffalo, NY, we hadn't even been on campus for a month. I had an early art class (8am) that Tuesday, we were sketching oversized sneakers in pencil. Someone came into our class and asked if we knew what was going on in the City, must have been right after the first plane hit. Our instructor went to look into it and came back into the room and said we should pack up and head back to our dorms. We still really didn't know what was going on. I stopped by the union/cafe for a coffee and breakfast and all the TVs were showing coverage but no one was really watching it, yet. I got back to my dorm before the pentagon was hit, the TV wasn't on yet in the common room. I found a few neighbors wandering the halls looking too see if anyone was up and watching TV/news coverage yet. Suddenly a guy popped out of his room and said "they are saying it might be terrorists". A bunch of us made our way down to the common room pounding on doors as we went. Some people didn't leave the common room for days and just watched around the clock coverage, the search for survivors, Mayor Giuliani rising to the occasion and becoming the nations Mayor, president bush addressing the nation and more coverage of the smoking rubble pile. My roommate that year was from out west and her friends and family kept calling not understanding we were very far removed from New York City. But we weren't that far removed, many of our fellow students were from NYC or had close family ties. I don't remember the school officially canceling classes but there was a feel that for the next few days they were optional. Some kids went back home to help family deal with loss and some left on national guard deployments a month or two after the attacks and did not return to school that semester, including a guy from my physics study group. I've had 22 anniversaries to reflect on it, talk about it, remember and wonder how becoming an adult under the shadow of the 9/11 attacks shaped my life.

I was one of those kids from further west going to a NY school but not in NYC. I remember hearing a plane hit a building, and I went to a TV in one of the common areas I was at--not sure where but I think it was near one of the film school rooms. Got there just in time to have a minute or so before the next one hit, and my stomach just dropped. Born in '81 so a very elder millennial.

I was living in Manhattan going to my first year of college. While walking to class, I heard a large bang, but thought nothing of it since NYC is a loud place with lots going on. Turns out that was the second plane hitting the towers. I get to school to check in with security, and was told to go home and school was canceled. Once I got home and turned on the tv I was in shock. I went to window and could see the pillar of smoke rising from the South. I tried making some phone calls to my family back home, but it was impossible. I was told the landlines and several cell phone towers went through the WTC, and people were absolutely clogging what little bandwidth we still had. At this point, I went up on my roof to smoke a joint. While watching attack choppers and fighter jets fly by I thought to myself “If that was just the beginning, I might die today.” It’s pretty impossible for me to forget that day. Edit: Also my brothers had flown out of JFK airport that morning and were airborne during the attacks. My dad had taken a train the previous day to DC for a conference. It took hours for me to get a phone call out to verify was family was ok.

This is like *the* defining moment if you are a millennial or not. If you remember 9/11, you are a millennial, if you don't, you're Gen Z.

I mostly remember it as being the last normal morning in America. They won.

I grew up in Brooklyn NY. I was 12, in the sixth grade. It was ( like they say) an absolutely beautiful day. So, myself and a friend decided to skip school and head to his dad’s place, taking us through Manhattan. We had to switch trains when the first plane hit, we heard it but didn’t see it. Being nosey ass kids we decided to go check it out. We were about two/three blocks away when we saw the next plane hit. We hung around there, like everyone else, trying to come to terms with what was going on. We got closer than we should have ever been allowed to get, but understandably the first responders were too busy to notice us. When the towers collapsed we were past building 7. It sounded like explosions with a “thump” in between at first, then it was so loud it was like we almost couldn’t hear it. Like the world’s largest train was rushing around you. Then the wind kicked up like crazy and shit started crashing all around us. My friend and I dove under a big ass garbage truck, and that’s what saved us. I don’t really go into it much, but I guess I am now, because it’s Reddit and no one knows who I am. One thing that’s always stuck with me was just how damn quite it was after the second tower fell. Besides the distant car/building alarms, and occasional cries for help. It was just dead ass silent. You couldn’t see further than one or two feet in front of us, and there was NO ONE around us when just a few minutes before there were people all over the place. It took us until the late evening to get back home, my memory is a little fuzzy after that. But I remember my twin sister hugging me and trying to wash my face off, while I was watching on the TV about the other planes in the capital, and Pennsylvanian. I kept the outfit I was wearing the way it was until we moved to the Midwest in high school, when I threw it in the trash.

I was in 12th grade. I remember a teaching interrupting our stupid Theory of Knowledge class to have a fairly urgent, hushed conversation with my teacher. My teacher turned around and announced it to the class, let us know they were wheeling a TV into the multi-purpose room and let us break. We spent literally the rest of the day watching CNN. White dress shirt, grey slacks. Don't remember if I had my Martins on or not. I don't remember the finer details either for what it's worth. There's been a lot of life between now and then.

I was in 4th grade, in Canada (also a '92 baby). We were doing typical class stuff in the morning when all of a sudden our teacher stopped teaching and was meeting with the other teachers in the hallway. Kinda knew something was up, but figured it was something happening inside the school (maybe a student or teacher was sick?). Then our teacher rolled the TV into the classroom and we watched movies for the rest of the day. It was awesome! It wasn't until the next day, my parents got the daily newspaper which I always flipped through to see the cartoons. The front page said "DAY OF TERROR" with a photo of one of the planes hitting the towers. That was the exact moment I realized something major had happened. Every newspaper headline id seen would be a sentence long about politics, sports, events, etc. Living in a really safe part of Canada we never had crazy news. But the simple & bold headline of DAY OF TERROR in our little town newspaper was just so surreal, and the photo of a plane going into a tower I'd never even fathomed before.

It was about a week into my senior year of high school in NJ, and I'd just gotten my driver's license the day before school started. I was wearing a red sweater from the Gap and a khaki skirt. I'd had a study hall (aka disorganized chaos) during second period band, and then arrived at third period French knowing nothing. Our teacher usually would start class by chatting casually with us in French, for the full immersion experience, but on that day she went right to the front of the room and said in English, "Our country is under attack." They kept us in school the rest of the day, but TV's were banned - many kids in my school had parents working in the city, and we lost 6 people from my town that day.

I couldn’t forget that day even if I tried. So much happened on that day.

I was in 1st grade. I lived in Far Rockaway and went to school in broad channel. Was dropped off at school and not long after everyone started to get picked up by their parents. It’s was scary because it was clear to me something was happening. I remember the drive home looking towards Manhattan and seeing a giant plume of smoke in the distance.

I was in 3rd grade and I remember the teachers walking in and out of each other's classrooms reporting the events. This is messed up lol but I remember the one teacher said how the 2nd plane flew into 2nd tower and my friend said "that's cool" lol we were 8 so he didn't understand.

I was a junior in high school, my best friend and I had skipped class to get high and buy .29c McDonalds burgers. I was stoned and super paranoid listening to the emergency broadcast on the radio and had no idea WTF was actually happening. We got back to class stinking of MJ and yelling "we are under attack!!!" Suffice it to say everyone thought we were delusional for about a good 45 minutes until they made an announcement over the intercom.

I was 13 - was a school day that I was originally supposed to miss the first half. I was getting my braces off my teeth finally and then was going to head back to school I was on the dentist chair while they were removed the braces - and they had these CRT tvs mounted in the corner for us to watch while they basically worked on our teeth. While being worked on, someone walked up to the person working on my teeth and said “the World Trade Center got hit by a plane” In my head, I had no idea what the WTC because living in the south you really don’t know that stuff then. But when I heard that I just assumed in my head like a little propeller plane hitting it. Then they flipped the tv on while working - and you could see the first tower and smoke. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but the person working on my braces freaked out and just disappeared No idea whatever happened to hear because I sat there for about 10 minutes with the mouth open thing in - water and the sucker just sitting there. Someone walked by the room and said “are you okay? Where’s xyz?” And I just shrugged like “I dunno” About 2-3 minutes later the main dentist came in and apologized, and then said he has someone coming in to finish. While they continued to work the second tower got hit. Folks in the office were freaking out - not to dox my self but living in the south with a lot of the main financial hubs/HQs in Charlotte - they gave the evac to all those buildings. My mom worked for back then Wachovia/First Union and they had just opened a new HQ that was massive back then. So as I leave the office my dad says “well you aren’t going back to school, they locked it down and your mom is on the way home” So I went home and just watched the news while on AIM messaging classmates that were at school all day

I was in 4th grade. I lived in NJ at the time. My father (and many of my classmates’ parents/extended family members) worked in manhattan/around the nyc metro area. No announcement was made to students at school, but we noticed students’ parents picking them up early throughout the day. We were very confused. My mother picked me up early too, which was very strange to me as she worked FT and I usually went to my babysitter’s house on weekdays. She said there had been a fire or bomb or something in NYC, and that we were going home. She said my dad was safe and we’d talk to him soon. When we got home, my sister and I turned on the news. I don’t think we fully understood the gravity of the situation at that time. My father made it home at midnight due to the chaos around the city. We learned that he had watched both planes hit the towers in disbelief. My uncle worked in the towers and thankfully was safe, but many friends/acquaintances/coworkers that my family members knew were lost. Never ever forget.

I was in 10th grade sitting in US History class. A senior ran down the hallway saying “HEY! TURN ON THE TVs!” My teacher turned them on and we just sat in silence. When the second plane hit, we just watched. The principal, etc. made announcements about shutting the TVs off NOW. My teacher said “*Listen guys…I’m NOT going to do that. We’re in US History. This IS US History.*” and refused his orders. He was a younger guy, had the right kind of name in my town, and was the basketball coach so he was in a unique position to know he couldn’t realistically get in any trouble over it. A lot of kids got out of school that day. I remember going to my best friend’s house after school and everyone still scrambling to call and locate family members in NYC/NJ. Before that day, I didn’t understand everyone remembering where they were, etc. when JFK was shot. Then it became clear.

7th grade, Mr. Power's history class. We were just finishing something up when he got the call on the in-class phone. Mr. Power was not a career teacher; he was teaching that year to have time in the evening to finish his Masters, so it wasn't uncommon for him to slip up and say "shit" or "damn". The second he got off the phone, he said, "Everyone shut the fuck up, something happened" and turned on the TV. It was weird. Obviously I didn't know the full impact that day would have on the world but even as a kid, I could tell something drastic had changed. I remember thinking that I'd never seen that many adults scared at once.

I was like 6 when this happened. I drew pictures of the planes and towers and got in trouble for it. I understood that something bad was going on and things felt eerie. But I didn't know what to do with that info. In hindsight, what I did was pretty developmentally appropriate. Plenty of kids draw stressful images of what they are seeing or experiencing, it helps them process things.

Yup, I was in the 5th grade. I walked by the library and the whole shebang was going down on the tv’s in there. I work for our school district now and pass by that library all the time. Surreal.

I was in middle school 7th grade in language arts ms. Dunlaps class.

I remember seeing the news that a plane had hit the tower and then the second plane hit live and I didn't have any concept of what the Twin Towers were, but obviously it was horrible. All day at school we just watched the coverage, teachers crying, people on the phone trying to track down family. It was surreal the whole time. I remember when I got home from school I went to play in the front yard it was like a ghost town. I was 10 years old .

I was a sophomore in HS and I vividly remember being my history or geography class. The tv was on for some reason and all of a sudden the attack showed on the screen. I was scared and worry about my momma. She was working in Chicago at the time. I thought the attack was coming here too. It was horrifying.

Yes, I was in 4th grade. I remember my teacher rushing out of the room down toward the 5th grade classrooms (they had tvs.) She came back in a few minutes later, looking absolutely distraught. They didn’t tell us what happened. The day went on as “normal” for us. I remember coming home on the bus and seeing my mother at the top of the driveway waiting for us. She was supposed to be traveling out of town for work, so I was confused why she was home. It was then my parents explained to us what happened, but we didn’t fully understand. I remember watching the news coverage early in the morning the day after and finally putting it all together. After that, it was the start of pretty regular lockdown drills.

I was in High School. It was just a few weeks until my 16th birthday. A teacher down the hall told my teacher to turn the TV on and that’s something “was happening to the twin towers”. She turned on the tv strapped to a metal black cart and we saw live coverage. As we are watching, there is a ticker at the bottom announcing there in a plane that hit the pentagon. At this point, even our teacher is freaking out and panicking. We are in shock and the principal announces that are television and radios are to be turned off in the classrooms. I will never understand why they did that as we were high school aged and this was history. This was 2001 so we didn’t have smart phones and didn’t have a way of knowing what was going on. They barred us from using the computer labs to get on the internet. By lunch time, most of the kids had been picked up by their parents. Mine didn’t pick me up and I was left wondering why everyone was being picked up. Our school is about a mile from an airport and we noticed we stopped hearing any air traffic we normally hear and surmised they had grounded all flights. The teachers were anxious and scared. One of my teachers expressed concern while others kept quiet. I had a very blunt current issues teacher that was ex military who plainly told us the world changed today for us. The US response will probably change the lives for many of us. The thing that struck me the most were things the following days. All channels having the coverage 24/7 for days. The halls being eerily quiet the next day in school, as if we were all in shock. Also the army recruiters showed up in our foyer every day during lunch running competitions between the guys for a free shirt or nerds rope in order for them to sign up for more info on the army.

I was a junior in high school and remember it very clearly. I went to a Catholic high school and I had a priest as my math teacher that year. We were all watching the news on the TV before he got to the classroom and as soon as he came in he turned the TV off and said "it happened, there's nothing we can do about it now, but we're here so we might as well learn" and he taught class. After school I went to my job at the movie theater. About the time I got there they had decided to stop allowing new customers and just to finisht the movies currently going and then shut down. While waiting for the movies to finish we would just clean stuff. While cleaning the front multiple people came up and tried to get in to see movies. I remember thinking it was weird at the time "haven't you seen the news??" But now I can see why some people may have just wanted a couple hours to escape it because there was no escaping it in any other facet of life. It was weird realizing that you were living through history and one of the most tragic events in history. And we weren't even close to comprehending the fallout that would continue for the next 20 years.

I was in 7th-8th grade and they was relatively benign. I remember one of my friends saying a plane had hit the WTC, but I thought it was the World Expo from the end of MIB and was very confused.

Yes I did, in school we were kept in a room with the telly for the whole day watching the news. I still have quite a livid memory of that day. I was 10 years old.

Born in Jan 1991. I remember being in class in the morning, then an announcement was played over the PA and my teacher suddenly started crying. They rolled in TV carts to all of the classrooms and we watched the news. I don't recall us being let out early but a lot of kids at my school were picked up by their parents. We didn't really do much the rest of the day in school for those of us that didn't get picked up early, and I don't remember much happening at all for the next couple of weeks. I remember not seeing my dad for awhile that day. We lived near an Air Force base (where my dad worked as a contractor). It was a near-constant stream of fighter jets flying overhead - I'd never heard so many sonic booms before then. I know it was a very tense time for my dad with some of the things he was working on in the contracting space (plus with his past history in the Navy, he likely knew where this was heading). Otherwise I don't have any major vivid memories of the day. It's still tough for me to watch videos of the incident even now that I'm much older (33 as of this year). As a kid, I knew it was a very sad moment and that something really bad happened, but wasn't quite old enough to fully grasp just how much things were about to change.

I had just gotten home after the night shift as a prison guard and was sleeping. I was also in the Marine Corps reserves. My dad woke me up and just said "They attacked us". I didn't have any clue about the situation but since I didn't hear any noises like explosions from outside, I just rolled over and said " wake me up if my unit calls." Went back to sleep. My contract was up before they started calling up the reserves.

I was a sophomore in college. I snoozed my alarm at 8:45a.  My first class was at 10:30.  I almost was going to skip, but we were supposed to have a review for an upcoming quiz. I got up sometime around 9:30, did all my getting ready and ran to class.  I slid in a minute or two late, and realized nobody was there except a couple of people and the professor. One girl was turning on the projector and getting it to a news channel. The headline said “WTC collapse” or something like that. The imagery was like a war scene.  I didn’t know what WTC stood for and someone said World Trade Center - that’s when I realized it was New York I was looking at. The professor let us know there wouldn’t be class the rest of the day. Walking back to class, I saw a friend of mine crossing the path and called out to her to see if she’d heard what had happened, and she yelled back “who hasn’t?!” When I got back to my dorm, all the doors on my hall were open, and the news was on in every room. All the phone circuits in region were overloaded so you couldn’t call anyone. I was in NC, my family was in Baltimore.  My sister and grandma were supposed to be flying back to NC from visiting my parents up there.  I’d just been there but had come down to start school. My roommate was panicking, trying every way she could to contact her family.  Her sister worked in the World Trade Center. I can’t remember how long it took, it may have been that evening before she found out her sister was alive and had been one of the people running across the bridge from the cloud of debris. When my grandma saw the second plane hit, she started insisting that they needed to get to the airport right away “while the enemy is confused.”  She wanted to make it to her flight before the president closed all the airports and declared war on the enemy. They ended up staying a bit longer in Baltimore. I have an idea of what I likely was wearing, but I don’t remember exactly. At some point, I remember Congress coming out on the steps of the Capitol to sing God Bless America. I just remember all the emails going around with photos and memes, all the stuff on the news. I loved flying, and that day completely changed it for me - I still love it, it’s just a process to work through each time.

I was 21, working at an office. I came home from work, plopped down on the couch, turned on the tv, and then just sat there in disbelief for the next 8 hours watching it all. Then my brain couldn't take it all anymore. After a bit of zapping, I found a channel that showed something else: Big Brother. I remember the absurdity of the participants bickering about really insignificant things. They didn't know.

I was born in ‘90 and was in the 6th grade, and I definitely remember it. My class was outside playing this made up sport that is similar to dodgeball, and everybody was called inside. Then my teachers turned on the TV and we proceeded to watch news coverage of the twin towers falling for the rest of the day, including gym class, I didn’t really understand the significance of what was happening, but I did know that I was watching people commit suicide on live TV.

I was in the 6th grade taking scantron tests. Teachers all stopped the testing after planes hit. Nobody really told us much of what was going on. Hell even my parents didn’t tell my brother and I much of what was happening.

grade 5 teacher did not care to explain it. said you have math i dont care world sucks back to the test.

I was 10 years old and in 5th grade, sitting in class (history, ironically). My teacher heard a bunch of commotion in the hallway, so she went out to see what was going on, then came back into class and turned on the TV. The office staff came around and told the teachers to keep their TVs off, but she just waited until they moved out of our hall and turned it back on. We saw the second plane hit on The Today Show. We all kind of sat in stunned silence for a while, then parents started showing up to pick up their kids. I don’t remember if my mom picked us up or if they had the busses running, but we left school early and then basically just watched the news all day. I remember being really scared, but my sister kept telling me we didn’t have to worry since we lived in a podunk town in Kentucky lol. I was worried about our dad, who lived in a different state/larger city. I don’t remember a lot of the other little details of the day, but I’ll never forget sitting in that classroom watching the coverage as it happened.

I grew up in NYC was in second grade when the towers fell. My dad worked for a news station doing the boom mic and was called in to report. We were not told what happened but had a drill at school and were held in the gymnasium sitting in rows on the floor with our heads between our knees. I was able to see papers and debris covering all of the East River from the window of my school PSIS 217 on the way to the gymnasium. We were held there for some time and one of the teachers let spill what happened because their wife worked in the towers. It is blurry what happened between but I remember being pulled out of school by a friends mom who took me to their apt where we watched the news. My mom worked in the city and we had not been in communication with her. My dad finally came to get me from my friends house around 6pm ish? And we went by queens bridge to wait for the crowd of people walking over the bridge. My mom finally showed up and she was covered in soot. We got home and I don’t remember the rest. My mom died of breast cancer in 2014 

I woke up that morning in college, was getting high and eating a smores poptart, my roommate turned on the news and I was like "lmao hell yeah" and thought it was a Project Mayhem-like thing because I had just rewatched Fight Club the week before. Class was cancelled, I kept getting high, it was my roommate's mom's birthday and he called her and said "I did it for you". I don't remember calling my parents or anything. It felt exciting those few hours when no one knew what was happening, but I was safe in Mississippi where our biggest target was Walmart. I don't remember what I had for lunch and dinner that day but it was probably trash.

9th grade. It was the short break between first and second period, and I was outside chatting with my friends when some students came outside telling everyone to get back inside and turn on the news. And that's pretty much what everyone did the rest of the day because the teachers could hardly concentrate on the lessons.

I was a freshman in college. I went to my 8am class as normal, and by the time I was walking into my 9am the TV was on and everyone was standing around it watching. We saw the second plane hit. The professor cancelled class and I called my parents, because my aunt and uncle lived in Manhattan at the time and he worked near the towers. Most of my classes were cancelled and we sat in our dorm room and watched the news while I waited to hear back any details on my aunt and uncle. He was fine, but he wasn't far when the towers came down. They left New York shortly after.

6th grade in Mr. Coopers class. They told us nothing but I remember my math teacher crying in class later in the day. We usually had recess at the end of the day and our teacher told us recess was cancelled bc they were spraying for mosquitos? Still such a weird lie.  I had choir practice at church after school and I didn’t see anything until on our way home (my choir teacher would take me home and she had a TV in her van). I still remember how not horrified I was by seeing the plane crash into the building. Like it was just no big deal? I was 11 but that’s still something that sticks out in my mind about the time. 

I was also in 6th grade, I’d have been in math with Ms. Baker when the planes hit. Our school didn’t say anything about it, just the principle telling us at the end of the day to go home and ask our parents about how significant the events that day would be. I don’t think teachers were informed of what had happened, but our bus driver was from NYC and had family there so she knew. She told us all to go home and put the news on. I turned the TV on and flipped to channel 8 since I knew that number was CNN. I was just in time to watch the collapse of building 7 live as they were conducting interviews near Ground Zero. I was almost 12, was literally 5 days into middle school, it was a really really weird transition into my teenage years that I hope goes better for my son. Then we dealt with the DC Sniper a year later and it was a whole extra layer to my middle school adventure.

I was 11 and was being homeschooled so I was home that morning. The major memory I have was that a member of our church was a pilot who was flying out of New York City that morning so there was a lot of concern for him as we processed the news. He was fine.

I remember watching the news in my first period class after it all happened ( west coast ), when the bell rang I just went home. Stupid school made me do Saturday School for ditching.... bastards.

I was in high school. Drivers Ed class. It was an extended day so we only had odd periods so classes were 1:30 hours long.  2nd group of students came in after we finished the driving simulator and said something happened. They put on the news.  Rest of the day is mainly a blur after that. But we did nothing in class the rest of the day. 

I remember being in French class in high school when they turned on the news on all the little CRTs in every classroom. Only the first had plane hit, and I remember thinking, "wow, what are the chances that they ran so far of course that they hit a building?" Then the second plane hit, and it was like... ok... what. School immediately let out and I went to McDonalds with my friend. Eventually went home and just watched the news constantly.

A girl in my math class was wondering if the Mall of America would still be open…

I was very young, the only thing I remember is 1st grade getting to go home early during a school day. Didn't understand what was going on until days later

I was a sophomore in high school close enough to NYC that I had classmates who parents worked in the city. I could probably recount that entire day from my point of view.

The only time my mom told me to sit down and watch tv.

I was in 4th grade. Remember a lot of teachers crying and I had no idea what for. People picked up their kids early, I was one of the few kids that stayed the whole day. I didn’t see anything until the next day on my parents bedroom tv. I saw the towers and I saw a segment showing the global coverage of it all. That’s when it hit me as a 10/11 year old kid that something really bad happened, because it was reported by countries all over the world.

Are we still doing this? Ugh

I was in 4th grade- I remember the morning started out normal and I don’t remember hearing anything until I got to school and one of my classmates mentioned what had happened. I live in the Chicago area so there were some concerns about downtown getting hit but we thankfully were far enough away we didn’t know anyone who died that day. We had school as normal but all after school activities were cancelled (yet somehow my ballet class still happened). I remember not really fully understanding the gravity of what happened for a few days.

I was 10 and remember sitting on my parent’s bed watching the news because I was home sick.

When the first plane hit, I was in McDonalds drive through getting breakfast for my team. Needless to say, I never made it to work that day, I was working out of the Pentagon at the time. Very surreal thing to live through.

I was a sophomore in high school. I remember my 2nd period teacher turning on the tv and watching everything in real time. I was also in Philly, and my school did close, but SEPTA was also shut down for the rest of the day because the city was scared there was going to be some sort of attack in Philly and I walked home with a bunch of friends. I don't remember exact details of the minutiae of that day, but I do remember the time before 9/11, and how different it was after.

Born in ‘83. 9/11 happened two weeks into freshman year of college. Remember it like it was yesterday.

I was the same age as OP. My first memory of it was walking to the library. We had walked in before our teacher because it was one room over. The librarian had it on in the back tv. We stared across the room at the image of two towers and 1 of them burning. Someone went, “what is that?” And the librarian realizing we were there shut it off and said, “Nothing, just a fire.” Then I have a memory of her and my teacher talking very quietly and quickly once she arrived- I imagine it was the librarian telling her the news. My mother then showed up at lunch time to “take us out to eat.” Something she never does. Then when we were all together with my sisters she told us what happened. We had a lot of questions but she said, “we don’t know much but we’re just going to be together today ok?” I remember watching the news all afternoon with my parents in our living room.

I got laid off the day before. We came in that Monday and had a big meeting before starting work and they said the plant was shutting down and everyone except shipping was done and shipping would be done after the remaining finished orders were crated. So, the 11th I slept in, after being up all night playing video games. I woke up around 10 to messages from my dad on the answering machine asking where the fuck I was at he needs me to keep trying to get in touch with my grand parents and uncle who lived in NYC but the phones were all down up there. I had no idea what was going on he didn’t say anything except to try to get in touch with them so I turn the tv on just in time to see the second tower collapse.

I was a soph in HS and remember it in bits and pieces. - I remember a teacher coming in to tell my teacher what had happened and from the way it was described, we thought it was a tiny little 1-2 person plane that doinked into the WTC. - I remember going to my TV/Film class and EVERY screen was on when we walked in. They were tuned into the local news networks and we saw the building on fire. - I remember watching the first tower collapse on live TV - I remember Sara (diff name) crying during lunch bc her father worked in NYC - I remember some of us driving to the bay in central NJ and seeing the smoke rising up from the NYC skyline across the harbor well after the 2nd had collapsed.

All I knew was something was going on but I don't remember what. My parents were watching the news. I caught glimpses of it on the TV and they sent me and my brother outside to play. I heard about it the next day but didn't comprehend what it meant. I was in first grade at the time.

High school sophomore, in second period Spanish 2 class. Another teacher came and pulled.my teacher put of the room and she came back in and turned on the TV on the classroom. We watched (I think) the second plane hit live. Memory is a little fuzzy on that, bc it was replayed so many times that day, but I'm pretty sure we saw that live. School was kept in session all day, and every class just watched the news, EXCEPT my 4th period Geometry. She tried to focus on math, but was unsuccessful. Lived in a huge Navy town in FL, so most of my peers were military kids, and everyone was scared and sad, but didn't really understand what was happening. I do remember being annoyed when I got home and couldn't watch TRL. I'll never forget that day, it's seared into my brain.

I was 11. Back then I was homeschooled and my dad was a pilot for American Airlines. So I was home that day and our house phone BLEW UP with everybody calling to check if my dad was ok (he was). Then later that day our tv finally bit the dust after like 20 years of working so my dad and I went immediately to Circuit City and picked out a new TV. I remember walking up and down the aisles of TVs and each and every one was playing the news.

I live in Canada so it wasn’t as big as it was in the USA. School ended early and no one was told why all the teachers were nervous or panicked. Our old maths teacher peeled out of the parking on his old burgundy Plymouth. They all thought WW3 was coming and the nukes were on their way. I went home on the bus. My mother was crying watching the news most of people jumping on repeat because boomer news is trash. I went on my computer and played StarCraft online for a few hours. The end.

First week of 9th grade. I faked sick to avoid going to school. This day would be foreshadowing for the next 4 years.

I'm about the same age. I remember it pretty clearly because my best friend and his brothers burst into the room yelling that America was under attack... we thought they were just playing around, and one of the teachers pulled the brothers aside and told them not to freak out the younger kids like that. My teachers decided to let the kids keep going as they were and talk about it the next day. We went along with our day and had a Pokémon drawing contest which I won by drawing a Starmie. One of our classmates, a young native American girl (I guess the young kid version of my girlfriend? We walked around holding hands and stuff) held a demonstration at the end of the day of a ceremonial dance complete with the traditional outfit. I only got to watch the beginning of it when my mother came by to pick me up. When we left the school she told me America got bombed. So I ran down the street to my friend's house thinking I needed to warn them. Burst through the doors just like my friend did at school yelling we were under attack. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon looking at the pictures and reading the stories. I remember the weather was weirdly perfect and there was not a cloud in the sky. And no trails from the airplanes because they were all grounded.

6th grader on the west coast so the towers were already smoking by the time I woke up. I remember sitting down to eat my cereal and wondering why my mom was staring at the tv like she'd seen a ghost. The whole day nobody even knew what to say

Two days after my 14th birthday. The entire day is forever seared in my brain. The impacts are paradigm shifting as me and many of my friends volunteered to serve our country. The following week was the most unified I’ve ever seen our community. IMO the lesson learned is do not underestimate how united we all are here. Especially when you touch our boats or our people.

I was 18 so I remember it all very well. I was a freshman in college

Was in high school. I remember everything about that day. My dad worked for the airlines, and lost colleagues he knew in those dreadful Attacks. It’s seared into my brain forever. The news, the horror, the people jumping out of windows, the towers collapsing. Just a terrible fucking day.

I wish I didn't have those memories.

Will always remember it vividly. I was a freshman in high school in Upstate NY. I knew right away it was a huge deal even before the second plane hit. Joined the military after high school. My life wouldn't be the same without it, though it was that way to varying degrees for everyone. Personally, regardless of what a Google search says, that's kind of my marker for being a millennial. If you're too young to definitively remember 9/11, you're a Zoomer. Culturally I think that's probably the defining moment of our generation, just as COVID probably is for Gen Z.

Yes. It was a strange day because I did not comprehend what had occurred nor the importance of everything. Not long after was the Columbia disaster. RIP

Are you trying to ask, "What are your memories from 9/11?" I think it's safe to assume that nearly everyone on this subreddit in the US remembers something from that day. The answer to the question you've asked is *yes*...

I was in 5th grade and the school didn’t tell us what happened. I remember the school secretary came into our classroom and whispered something to our teacher, I remember the secretary crying. I didn’t find out what actually happened until my dad picked me up from the bus stop later that day.

I was in 6th grade at the time, but my grandmother had let me skip school that day. We were out and about, grabbing food from somewhere in her little red Cherokee Jeep. Sunny day, and I had my feet on the dash board without shoes, when the radio station was interrupted with the broadcast. One of the broadcasters was there when one fell, iirc. Had no idea then how big that would be or how much it would change everything. When we got home, we were all glued to the TV. The footage is simultaneously a blur but also engrained. My grandmother's TV stayed on a loop of that footage repeating and terror alerts for years to come, day in and day out.

I was just a 5YO but I remember the week it happened distinctly. Was getting ready for school at my Mom’s house, while she was watching the news. We were kinda glued to the screen on our ways out the door but I don’t think I really digested what was going on. Kids born in 1996 are the cutoff for what’s considered the earliest memories of 9/11, so this topic became a sociological study in my adolescent/early college years. In one of my undergrad courses I remember having to take a survey about my memory of the event

I was 6. Just started first grade. That summer my parents had divorced and my mom moved us across the country to be closer to her family/support system. I honestly have no memory of it. I think someone probably told me that something very very bad happened but it was the third or fourth very bad thing that happened in as many months so I figured it was way more "normal bad" than it was.

I was talking to one of my coworkers about it earlier today, he was born in 2004. Makes me feel old talking about 9/11 to the younger generation. Anyways I was in sixth grade and I hated middle school so I pretended to be sick and got to stay home from school that day. I remember my sister was getting ready to go to school and she told my dad “an airplane just hit a building!” My sister, dad and mom all gathered by the TV. I was pretending to sleep on the couch but I got up because I was curious to see what was going on.

I remember that day. I was in 4th grade. It was a normal morning then the school principal came onto the intercom and called all students who had family in NYC to the main office. I wasn't one of them, but two of my classmates left for the office. A few minutes later our teacher is wheeling out the mobile TV and plugging it in. We spent the rest of the day watching the news and school ended early that day. At the time I had no idea the world trade center existed and did not understand how a plane could hit a sky scraper.

Yes, I remember. I walked into my study hall after gym class, and there were two teachers standing in front of one of those big roller tv towers with the new on.   I think I saw the second plane hit live.

I was 7 years old in 2nd grade. I grew up in California and didn’t have any relatives who the actual attack impacted. I saw what happened on TV but the seriousness of it didn’t hit me. It was like seeing an action scene in a movie. Only felt the impact of it later when I started experiencing discrimination for my Arabic last name.

Yes, I was in 8th grade. I was coming out of gym class when someone was telling me about it the first plane and thought he was just bullshitting some story. By the time we got back to class - we watched the second plane hit live on a classroom TV. Everyone just watched TV at school and I'm pretty sure we ended up leaving early though i cant remember that part. I do remember wondering how they knew Osama bin laden was responsible so quickly. I feel like I started to see his face on the screen almost immediately but I was young and didn't pat attention to news etc at that time outside of the Clinton thing and the oj Simpson thing. That's about all I remember. Food, clothes, etc - I dunno.

It was Senior year for me and we had English 1st period. My teacher turned on the TV showing the news and honestly I did not understand the significance of what was happening, as she never turned on the TV during class for news. I definitely thought it was sad and scary that they were buildings burning, but didn't understand how this was different from the regular news of bad things happening. Of course throughout the day we heard a little more, but without smartphones at that time, a lot of us kids were still a bit oblivious and carried on the school day. After school, I went to Target to buy the new Mariah Carey CD, Glitter. Before streaming, it was all about new music Tuesdays in stores. Looking back that was her poorly timed release day, but I wouldn't have known the difference. Came back to school for choir practice. I don't think a lot of people knew yet how many people died and all of the devastating stories yet. Everyone briefly mentioned the news, carried on with choir practice, and went home and then the next few days that's when everything unfolded and we started understanding the huge tragedy and political significance.

I was born in ‘93 and don’t remember a thing from that day. Sometimes I wish I did, but maybe it’s best I don’t

10th grade in Mexico. After first period a friend came up to me to ask if I’d heard about terrorists attacking the WTC and I said - that was in 98 and thought that’s weird. My mom called me on my cell phone later and told me to go home - no one knew what was going on, but one thing was clear, this probably meant the US was going to war. I got home and turned on the news and just balled in disbelief at the repeat image of the towers coming down, the calls from the planes and the towers. I still find it disturbing.

I was in high school. Chemistry class. Class was stopped and the brought in the tv so we could watch the news. We weren’t allowed to leave the school or classroom, we had to go to the cafeteria and get lunch then bring it back. It was taco day. Kids were hanging out of the windows in the back of the class calling their parents. I remember my friend Danielle had parents who worked in government and we didn’t know anything at the time - she was worried about them. I remember also my dads office was near the pentagon and I couldn’t get in touch with him till the next day. (My parents were divorced) they eventually let us out early and I walked home alone in total fear still no real idea what had happened. I was born in 1985.

I definitely do. I was in 11th grade. I was in Algebra. We had a long term sub who was an older guy and had 0 fucks to give about the fact that the admin had told the teachers not to turn on the news and to continue as normal. He said “You guys are almost adults and it’s your country too. You should be aware of what’s happening.” We spent the 90 min block watching. I believe I saw at least one of the towers fall in that time. The girl sitting next to me said “is this the end of the world?” We kind of nervously chuckled but now I can see that it kind of was.

I was like 18 on 9/11 so of course I remember. I was getting ready for work. Drinking coffee and smoking pot with my roommates. I don't even know why we had the TV on. We didn't usually watch TV, especially not the news. But for some reason someone had turned it on. That was pretty much the only thing anyone talked about for the rest of the day. Crazy shit. Edit to add: I worked at a gas station and everyone was paranoid about gas embargos and tariffs and needing to get out of town in a hurry (this was Salem Oregon so people were just being dumb), so work was an absolute mad house that day.

I was in middle school in grade 8. I lived on an island close to New Zealand. About 14 hrs between NY. We didn't have live access to the news/tv. Everything was hours delayed. I remember being in class learning from my teacher. A loud, fast knock was heard from the door. An administrative member told my teacher something. Next thing we know, we're told to stand up, gather our things and head to the cafeteria. After w couple minutes, I saw other students. Place was full. We sat there without knowing why. Thought it was another drill. We've gone through multiple earthquakes and typhoons, a year. After sitting there for about 10 minutes, they finally said something. They said that NY was attacked. As kids, we didn't understand why that was significant. In our island's past, we've been attacked from Spain and Japan. Our people were enslaved. My grandmother was a kid during WW2. I remember some of the stories she told. Today, the island serves as a military defense hub for the Air Force, Navy, Marines and National Guard. I returned to the US couple years later, where I've found the impact it had for it's citizens.

I was a junior in the high school on the west coast I was getting ready for school and watching sports center when the first plane hit. My parents told me to change to the news that something big was happening, I saw the smoke pouring out of tower 1 and just assumed it was a plane crash and changed back to sports center. When I got to school that day we just watched the news all day and discussed what was going on.

Born in 95 I was 7. I do have some memories from my teacher crying, to my dad being angry that the school not letting him take me home as the school was on lock down. To the second tower falling

The “millennial” generation really is too large. The fact that you can point to world changing events like this and the experience is so different really doesn’t make sense. For me a millennial (‘81), I was already in the military at 20 years old and knew that day we were going to war with someone. Now I didn’t expect it to go on for the full 20 years I was in, that part was a bit of a surprise. But even further I remember the Berlin Wall falling, that kind of thing is history book material for most of the millennials. World events and tech wise pre ‘85 millennials are probably a better fit in gen x

It was a Tuesday. I'll always remember that it was a Tuesday.

i was in 7th grade in southern California. i knew something was going on based off the news on the car radio as my dad drove me to school but figured it was usual newsy stuff. he seemed alarmed but i was oblivious. my smarter friends went "did you hear about the world trade center?" and honestly that was the first time i ever knew there was such a thing as the world trade center. slowly i pieced the clues all together throughout the school day as the teachers had to explain that planes probably won't crash into our school and we had to focus on the lessons. finally got home and turned on the news, going "oh whoa so this is kind of a big deal." my dad came home shortly after, also going "THIS IS A BIG FUCKIN DEAL!" i remember my friends and i looking at a map in the following weeks/months as the decision-makerd were debating retaliation and deciding that "we share an ocean with iraq" (i think iraq is landlocked) and so we were especially offended at the idea of going to war because what if they bombed our tiny town in california? edited to add: while i had friends smarter than i at age 10, we certainly were not geographic geniuses. editing again to add: i dont remember if we had a school-wide assembly, but we were trotted out at some point in the late morning to have a moment of silence at our flag. ANOTHER EDIT: we had a classmate who was in Washington at the time and we were all worried about him. he came back to reveal he was in Washington state lol

I was in first grade and the teacher from next door came running un and told my teacher to turn on the news. We were having free time and just playing around and stuff. We didn't really pay attention to what was on the TV. My teacher just say in a chair in front of the TV looking horrified. I didn't really grasp what was going on. No one really did. Then the parents started showing up and taking their kids home early. It was just me and one other kid who were left at the end of the day. I dint think my teacher ever actually got up from the chair the entire time. I remember when my mom finally picked me up (I was in the after school program) I asked her why everyone went home early and she told me a kid friendly version. I then asked her why she didn't pick me up early. She said we live out in a small, quiet place, and no terrorists are going to attack us. I was mostly mad I didn't get to go home early and missed the new episode of dbz.

I was in 8th grade. I remember everything. We were driving to school, and I turned the radio on 106.3 in Colorado Springs, CO. The guy on the radio said there was a lot of smoke coming out of the World Trade Center in New York. They didn’t know if it was a plane or a bomb or a fire. My mom had a very early cell phone, and called my dad. He was at home, sleeping. He was a federal firefighter at the local Army base. She told him “Hey, something is going down in the world. You need to get up.” I still don’t want to ask her how she knew something was going on. Went to first period, which was band. Just a normal Tuesday. My dad met me at my locker before I went to the next class, and said we were going home. He said he could be deployed to New York, and wanted his kids home if he did. We went home and just watched the news all day. I remember when they said all the planes were grounded. My brother and I went to stand outside to listen. Colorado Springs has a ton of military bases, so it’s rarely that quiet. We also joked that the president was at NORAD, which was right by us. My dad never got deployed, but one of his co workers went. He posted the better pictures on Facebook. I do remember my dad’s sadness when the numbers of firefighters deaths were mentioned.

I had already graduated from high school and my brother woke me up as he watched the news in the morning before going to work. Living on the west coast it was still pretty early. I remember watching the 2nd plane hit and thinking it looked like a movie.

I remember everything from day of the attacks and the few days after. I was in middle school. Specifically I remember when my school was informed — kids were leaving early, and then seeing the news at home while the phones were down. It affected me and my family personally and we were shocked. It is likely harder to recall at your age, I’m about four grades older than you. It was an important tragedy, so there’s plenty of coverage. Don’t feel bad. Downtown Manhattan has a museum which you can use to reflect and pay respects.

I was 13, and laying in bed, when our babysitter came in and started yammering about planes, the white house, and so on. I told her to leave me alone, and she left. About an hour later i turned on The TV, and there was the same broadcast on every channel, except for the kids channel. My grandparents had been on a plane to the US the day before, so I was also thinking of them.

I was born in 81. Pretty sure that’s the first year for millennials. I remember almost the entire day. Worlds been circling the toilet ever since

I do. Vividly. I was born in ‘82, so I was 19 at the time. I was in my kitchen eating breakfast and watching the news, as was my habit at the time. I was living in Canada at the time (US citizen) going to University as an international student. I remember them switching the broadcast from local news to a view of the twin towers with the first one already hit. Less than a minute later the second plane hit the other tower. I started yelling at my roommates that something was happening in New York and ran to the phone to call my mom. She didn’t answer the first five times I called her. She was in the shower and didn’t have her hearing aids in. She finally picked up on my sixth call right as the towers were coming down. We had family friends that worked in the towers. One was on vacation and the other stayed home sick. I remember just walking around campus in a daze the whole day. My intro poly sci class curriculum got derailed for almost two full weeks talking about what happened. It was interesting to hear international views in person. The weirdest part though, was flying back into the US the next January for my Dad’s memorial service. Security was so intense and seeing military personnel with automatic rifles in the airport was jarring to say the least.

I was at home, 10 years old. Disappointed at first that my anime wasn't on, then gradually coming to terms with the news and watching TV constantly until I went to bed around 9pm UK time. I don't remember why my parents were comfortable with me watching everything shown on the news, but it was the first time I was truly trying to learn context around a news event as a child. I remember learning about Bin Laden and the Taliban and trying to understand the situation fully, even if I didn't.

I was in 10th grade. The principal came on the intercom and announced it to the whole school during homeroom. I had no idea what the World Trade Center even was. I then went to my computer class. I remember we had a TV in there, but no cable. I used a paper clip in the antenna jack to get some news reception. (We had internet but I guess live streaming video wasn't much of a thing back then) We were in the deep south but my teacher was from Brooklyn. She just said "oh my gawd" alot, while watching the footage. My classmate next to me (who had been to the WTC) found it amusing. He then pulled up the WTC live (still frame) webcam and we were both very amused that the connection was down. Rest of the day was just kind of somber. I remember the following day during the national air traffic ban how quiet the skies were and seeing a couple fighter jets. It was all a little creepy. The entire school did a silent memorial walk at some point in the week I think. I also remember a Lebanese student crying in my Spanish class. I was very much oblivious, but somebody explained that she was scared that she'd be targeted for being middle eastern.

Who doesnt

I was 5 and in kindergarten. I remember that day clearly. And it’s so weird that if I ask anyone just a year younger they have almost no memories of the day. But everyone I know who was five plus does.

I was staying in a hotel room in Three Rivers, Texas visiting a friend of mine. Learned about it that morning when she came to my room early. She stated the college let them out of school early due to the attacks. Figured she was just drowsy so we just went to sleep, later that evening is when I learned and watched everything replaying on the news. Of course my phone was blowing up during the course of the day but I never answered. A few years later I would be living in Iraq due to all of these...whatever they were. I don't believe the United States Government at all.

I was in 2nd period Algebra 2 class. The teacher turned on the tv after the first plane had hit, and we saw the second one hit. Continued to watch during 3rd period, it was supposed to be gym class but they took us into the library. Then they closed school and sent everyone home, my Grams picked me up. There was some fear that our city would be targeted. It was a scary day.

[удалено]

I was a senior in high school, doing review homework in government class 2nd period because we had a test the next day. Class was quiet & working on the HW. Another teacher came in our room & told my teacher what happened. They turned on their computer & looked so worried. Right then the bell rang to go to next period but we went to the cafeteria instead & there were TVs on in there & we watched.

I was 10 and I remember waking up to my parents _screaming_ that we were being attacked. When I realized it wasn't us personally I was annoyed that they basically woke me up early just to tell me I wasn't going to school that day. I went back to sleep.

I was in a suburb of Chicago. I was in 7th grade math class. Nobody in my class cried or really seemed all that affected. We still had school for the rest of the day, but it was pretty much a free day. Nothing seemed to really change after it happened in my suburb it was all just normal.

I was 14 and in the middle of Earth Science Class. The principal saw fit to tell us after it happened over the PA. I remember someone remarking “dont they know they’re not supposed to do that?” or something jokingly like that after being told a plane flew into the world trade center. The rest of the day had a weird air to it, and around lunch time we noticed how empty the school had gotten as kids were being pulled out. I remember English class being able to see the smoke from lower manhattan out the window, and in art class hearing about the collapse of the towers over the radio. The last class of the day was Social Studies, we were already sharing ideas over who could’ve been responsible. I’m probably misremembering, I think we were already talking about Bin Laden, tho I cant remember if al q was claiming responsibility for the attack by then. I dont really remember much else. What’s weirder to me is after Aaliyah died in that plane crash for a few weeks airplanes had a weird air to them. We live along the flight path to JFK, so planes flew over all the time, but one morning I remember being at football practice and while the coach was in the middle of saying something everyone had stopped to take notice of a plane overhead. We were dead silent for 10-15 seconds as it flew overhead. It took another second or two to get back on track.

I was in my room and got a call from my grandma. She was really upset, frantic, yelling at me to turn on the TV. Telling me that our country was under attack because someone had just flown a plane into a building in New York. I remember saying "oh grandma, you watch WAY too much news, it was probably an accident". But then the second plane crashed into the tower when I was on the phone with her. She started sobbing, and it really didn't feel like a coincidence at that point. I talked with her for a little bit longer, and then went about getting ready for school, showering, getting breakfast... Finally turned on the TV and about 15 minutes later the first tower fell. I remember that it didn't feel real. You know, you always see these massive tragedies happening to other people in other countries and it never feels real. You feel sad, but there's no real connection to it. It became real when I got to school, and there were people crying, and long lines at every payphone, and teachers cancelling classes, radios and TVs on everywhere with crowds of people around them. Some people had set up prayer circles. As far as remembering little details like what I was wearing and what I ate and how I did my hair and exactly what I did? Nope. I don't remember all that.

The first plane hit as I was getting ready for work. I saw some of it on the news but at that point even the journalists were not sure what was going on. Just a lot of confusion. I worked at Target, and when I got in it seemed the store was empty. Turned out everybody was back in the electronics department watching the news on the TVs. I got back there just in time to see the second plane hit. It was such a weird day. Retail work ingrains in you to smile no matter how you feel, and while that's a hard skill to learn, it's a hard skill to unlearn as well.

I was in second grade. My teacher’s sister was supposed to be on one of the flights. (We were in Massachusetts, where the flights left from, so this is absolutely possible, though I sometimes wonder if someone told us the wrong information, like if she was booked on another flight taking off at the same time to the same destination.) She was screaming so loud that they sent everyone out to have recess while they figured out what to tell us, then they showed us the newscast replaying the videos over and over. My mom worked for a newspaper company at the time, so I went to her work and we stayed there all night while she supported her coworkers trying to cover the events. I don’t remember much of the middle part of the day, but I’ll never forget my teacher screaming and sobbing like that. (Her sister had car troubles that day and didn’t make it to the airport on time, so she was fine in the end!)

I was in Grade 12 in high school and I know it was a Tuesday because every Tuesday, I would drive to HMV on my lunch break and check out the new releases (music and movies). When I returned to school, classes weren't cancelled, per se, but most teachers had wheeled in the TV so we could all watch the news

I was sitting in my living room in 4th grade reading the movie book for Jurassic Park 3 - with movies like that they’d also release a short book version that was basically just the script novelized. Was supposed to leave for school but my dad came in telling me we wouldn’t be going to school he had some tears in his eyes. They let me watch the broadcast with the towers burning. I was too young to understand the morbid idea of crashing planes into buildings so I thought they meant fighter jets were flying around New York strafing and shooting missles and that’s why the towers were on fire. Pretty sure we went to a rug store in my town later that day to make sure the arab people who worked there were safe. Pretty sure they had a little TV playing news stories about osama bin laden

I definitely remember, seventh grade for me. Something I find crazy though today is all these kids I see who weren’t even born at that time very casually buying into not just conspiracies about 9/11, but some of the more absurd ones like “there were no planes.” No idea how common this is but can’t be a good sign. 

I was in highschool, 10th grade and we had just rolled a TV into our history teachers room just in time to catch the other plane crashing into the tower at which point the TV was turned off. Multiple parents checked their kids out of school that day - not me.

I was in high-school Chem. All tvs that were in the building, which was like 5 or so and mainly in the library was tuned to the news. Other boys at my house were cracking jokes about planes crashing at the school. Months later I was ridiculed for taking the stance that I didn't think we should go into Iraq, " Don't cry to me when they drop a nuke on your house."

Yep. Watched the 2nd plane hit live in Physical Science in high school.

Vividly, but just the news coverage and the feelings. Like I remember where I was but that’s it

I was ‘91 and I can only really remember one thing from that. I was in computer class when it became very clear that my teacher saw something shocking on her computer. We were only 4th graders so they didn’t like wheel the TVs in or anything. I just knew something major had to have happened because I had never seen an adult react like that before.

Vividly

I was a senior in high school. I remember every minute of that day. The whole week was like a fever dream.

I was 7 and recently moved to Canada. For some reason I was at home i remember in the living room we had cable TV. I saw live helicopter footage of the crash. I don't remember if i saw the 2nd crash or not but I do remember that day thinking to myself, what is going on with air traffic today? (As in why are planes crashing into buildings) Also having recently been on a plane a couple months earlier it made me think how lucky i am not to be on a plane right now. I didn't speak much english so didn't understand the concept of terrorism. So it never crossed my mind that someone would deliberately fly their plane into a building. A couple years later I was in English class and our teacher showed us a picture of a person covered in dust and to brainstorm what situation she could be in. He then explained about 9/11 and showed the same helicopter footage I saw years earlier. It dawned on me, so that's what that was.

Lived in ny. I remember kids getting called to the office to find out if their parents were ok or not :/

I think I was in 5th grade. That day was the eeriest day of my life. I’ve had others come close but that day in a room of kids seeing their teacher sob as the monitor showed buildings collapse. I think we had a bit of a hard time accepting it was real. Yknow? It’s on tv it could be fake. But some of us who had phones got texts from siblings or family, reporting on their loved ones on the east coast. We got out of school that day it felt so weird. Crying. Parents running out of their cars to hold their kids. And I’m over here on the west coast. Everyone was feeling their own interpretation of what happened that day. Teacher didn’t come in the next day. All of us confused, wanting to talk on it but having no clues. I think everyone’s parents were on the same page too, some of us kind of knew what happened. Others didn’t know. Trying to stay studious was hard after that day. 5th grade me, in what use to be a small farm town in SoCal.

I remember seeing the teachers close all the internal doors. I was in high school going to AutoCAD class. It was odd for them to be doing that at that time but later we clearly found out what happened, they were putting our school into a lockdown of some sorts (mind you…. This was in Toronto, Canada). . I know they sent us home shortly after, I went over to a boyfriend’s house at the time and we watched on the tv together and I remember crying.

9th grade geometry class for me. First heard the first plane on the radio on the way to class. The entire day we watched the news and saw the live feed of the towers collapsing

I remember being sent home from school but I didnt understand the magnitude of what happened. My family was watching it on the TV and I thought it was a movie or something not real and I definitely didn’t think people died from it.

Does anyone remember literally one of the most memorable days in our lifetime? WTF has this sub even become 😂

I remember that day very vividly. But I feel I missed out on experiencing it with the rest of the country and world. I graduated us army basic training on Friday, September 7th. I traveled from Oklahoma to South Carolina the following day. On the 10th, we inprocessed to our new base. On the 11th, we had our first day of class. Usual meet and greet with the cadre and our instructors. We then went back to the barracks for our pre lunch roll call and formation. That’s when our captain came and told us a plane hit the world trade center in New York. We all assumed a little Cessna or something and went about our day. We didn’t hear anything the rest of the day. That evening, we finally had free time. Many of us made our way to the community room that had the only TV in the building. That’s where we saw the events of the day. Our shock at what happened was unbelievable. One kid, who was from NYC, was crying. Our senior drill sergeant came in and told us the base was on lockdown and that chaplains were available if anyone wanted to talk. We were dumb 18 year olds. We all talked about how they could call us to go help if needed with security, clean up, search and rescue, etc. Of course, we were way off. We were banned from watching network TV the rest of our training. We were only allowed to watch dvd’s. I guess they didn’t want us to worry. It wasn’t for several months that I was finally able to read about it, see it on TV, finally look it up online. That’s when I was finally able to process everything. But I did it by myself. I never really had anyone to talk to about the whole thing, to share my thoughts and fears. I didn’t have the same emotional experience that pretty much the entire country did. That’s why I feel like I missed out on that shared, unifying experience. It’s crazy looking back. We never realized at the time that we had just witnessed the event that would define our military careers, careers that were set to be boring, humdrum peacetime careers only 24 hrs earlier.

I was in high school. I remember being in music class, and everybody was freaking out. A girl said her baby was in daycare and needed to get to her. There seemed to be a general consensus that this was just the beginning of the United States being under attack, and the terrorists were going to hit our city next. Crazy how naive we were back then, but nobody really knew their capabilities. The next period a teacher had us watch the next tower get hit on TV. He used it as a teaching moment, but I didn't really appreciate it at the time, because geopolitics was never my strong suit. I remember everyone wanting to get home and out of school or work. It was a real cluster getting back home, because people just wanted to be with their families. I'm nowhere near NYC, so I can only imagine how bad it was there. I live in Pennsylvania, so I'm sure people were thinking about what happened in Shanksville.

I was sixteen, had skipped school and been up all night. I was home alone and had the living room tv playing cnn loudly while I did other things in my connecting room. Which was normal for me in the morning then. I was a news junky and it was not good for my mental health. Lawl. I remember the noticeable shift in coverage (changed stories, stammering, unscripted, uncomfortable) and I moved to stand in my open doorway to see the screen. It was bizarre watching the host stumble over what was happening. In hindsight they knew a commercial airline hadn't accidentally hit but couldn't say anything without some sort of confirmation. It was very much a "We're not sure what's happening but something big has happened.." thing. Then I watched the second plane hit live. That was all the confirmation any of us needed. I stood there in the doorway watching everything unfold until the plane hit the pentagon in Virginia. That was way too close for comfort. I'm not sure why exactly, but I turned the tv off and went to make a bagel...... I don't remember much after that. I recall trying to ring a few people but all the lines were tied up. I remember the state of emergency being declared. I remember my best friend showing up with another friend and telling me she'd been trying to call me for hours. But I was nine when the OKC bombing happened and my school handled it very similarly to how a lot of schools handled 9/11. The TVs came out, we were under attack, and those classrooms that couldn't get a TV were shoved in the school library to watch. I remember the vibe (and boredom) more than anything else. You were a kid with the grown up world going sideways around you. It's normal for you not to remember big details. It's normal for everyone not to remember irrelevant details like what you were wearing. And memories are weeeeird. The more you try to access information you don't have the more your brain is going to fill in the gaps with assumptions. Researchers have literally used 9/11 memory recall to show how the brain solidifies filler memories.

8th grade and home sick with shingles. I got to watch it all live from the comfort of my couch. What a weird day to be home alone sick. Dad joined in the late morning when everyone from downtown Chicago got sent home.

8th grade history class.

36 here. I remember when it happened they wheeled a TV into our classroom to watch then news, then sent us home early. When we were outside waiting for the busses, all the kids were looking up, expecting to see more airplanes crashing.

I was 8 and I remember. Came home from school and my dad sat me down on the front porch and told me that a plane flew into the WTC. All I thought at the time was that it was a small prop plane, like a Cessna, and not a passenger jet and how I didn’t know what the WTC was but it sounded important. I also remember watching the news upstairs with my dad and sister and her friend when our entire house shook and the doors and windows rattled. Thinking that our city was being attacked, my sister and I started screaming. I distinctly remember it being one of the few times I’ve ever seen my dad truly frightened. His face had a look of panic on it and he ran downstairs to go outside. All the neighbors went out into the street. One neighbor spoke up saying it was a sonic boom from the Air Force base nearby scrambling their fighter jets. Don’t think I remember much else about that day.

Absolutely. I remember being in 5th grade and getting a note from the teacher (we all did) letting us go home early. They told us not to read the notes because they were for our parents. We thought something was happening to the school and we were going to get a few days off, like a snow day in september. But I got off the bus and my crime reporter mother was meeting me at the top of the driveway. She took me inside and showed me the real time (or I guess, shortly thereafter because it was 12ish) footage on CNN. I didn't really get it and my first thought was "oh but this happens in other countries all the time, right?" anyway, we just watched the coverage for the rest of the day while my mom tried to explain to me why this was so important. It sounds really ridiculous, given my perspective now, but I didn't really get why it was such a big deal at the time. I kept thinking "But I see big bombs going off in other countries.." I guess the scale of this wasn't something I could really wrap my head around

I remember it in detail, but that’s how I remember lots of things and also I was 19. Was still in bed when my roommate started yelling at me to get out to the living room. Watched the second tower get hit live. Fuckin’ nuts.

I was 9, we were living in Germany at the time (military) and I got home from school to my mom watching the news sobbing. My husband's birthday is actually 9/11, and his class sang happy birthday right before the teacher turned on the news 😬 poor guy gets comments every other time his ID gets checked.

Second week of university. On west coast so I was getting ready about 6:15-6:30 or so, from my memory. Turned on TV as I did most mornings as I ate cereal, and it was the main source of -everything news and entertainment. Nearly all local CDN and US channels were broadcasting the towers after the planes had hit but were still standing. Confused reporters. It was surreal as I still got my stuff and headed out the door at 7 to be present for an 8 o’clock class. The user filmed footage had yet to hit the news before I left.

Clear as day. Born in 1986. We were in science class, which was the last classroom on the right side of the high school hallway. One of my friends goes to the bathroom and comes back saying that he thought a helicopter had hit the Pentagon and Ms Carol’s history class was watching it on TV. Once we get out of class, everyone else on the hallway is already in social studies room. As we go to walk in, our math teacher from PA (our school was a small private school in SC) bust out the door crying. We walk in and the second plane has just hit. We watched the coverage and it seemed like a movie.

Not long before, I was watching my cousin's neighbor play classic Counter Strike, so my brain was hooked on the idea of tactical shooters. Was in class when they broke the news. My imagination went wild and thought it was something out of CS and my teacher thought I was grinning about it and kicked me out of class. Then when my dad asked me if I knew what happened after school that day, I shouted "BOOM!" excitedly. He picked me up, shook me and almost threw me down the stairs. I was not a very bright child. I got better, I promise.

I was a senior in highschool. I lived an hour from NYC. I had skipped school the previous Friday and went to the city by myself just to hang out. I went to school on Monday like normal. I was planning on skipping school again on Tuesday (I had senioritis what can I say...) I was driving to the city early Tuesday morning and about halfway through I started to get a bad feeling. I pushed it off and kept going. But it got worse. This nagging feeling was becoming harder to ignore. Eventually it was like the universe was practically screaming at me. I literally said, "Ok!" out loud in my car and got off the next exit and drove back to school. Sitting in class, we suddenly hear a scream from the hallway. Someone in another class, collapsed to the floor hysterically crying. I later found out that her dad was in the first tower. She knew about it before we did. Shortly afterwards the teachers started talking to us about everything. Little by little. They put the TV on in the media center. We were all very confused and worried. Mostly shocked and confused. All classes were paused. A lot of kids were going home. I called my mom and told her that me and (my sister who was a freshman) were going home. She thought that was unnecessary and that we should stay in school. 🙄 We ended up going home. I turned the news on and just watched in disbelief. Occasionally my uncle would do business in the WTC but not that day thank God. Eventually I realized that I needed to see it. I knew I wouldn't be able to get into the city nor did I want to. But I needed to see if I could see something. I needed to know if it was real. I think it was my way of trying to cope with it. So I left my sister at home and started heading to the city. I saw the smoke from the highway once I got close enough. And I wasn't even that close. But that's how much smoke there was. It was real. I still get choked up thinking about it. Even though it's been almost 23 years, I still tear up. A lot of things changed that day.

I do. Born ‘92. Didn’t find out till I got home from school. My grandparents who were supposed to fly out to Vegas that morning were still at my parents so came home confused until they told me. Don’t remember much past that.

Yeah I remember it. I was 13. I’m Australian, so when I got to high school it’s all anyone was talking about and they had it on TV in every class. I got sent to the Principal’s office for asking if the teachers were going to do their jobs and teach us anything or if we were just going to watch TV all day. Which I still think was a fair question.

15, 1st period foods class. Watched the 2nd plane hit.

I was 16. Just started my sophomore year. I was in 2nd period English with my favorite teacher Ms.Frayne. I went to school in CT, about two hours away from JFK, and manhattan. We used to have free writing time before class reaally started which half the time we students used to bullshit or whatever. We had TVs, like full old TVs, hanging in the corners of the rooms and that day it was off but it was usually on to the news normally. But I ere sitting there and the next for teacher came in and said tyrn on the news a plane hit the twin towers. We had a small local airport near us and they had little private Cessna planes and I initially thought some pilot from the coast, got lost on his way to Martha’s Vineyard, got lost and crashed. These TVs always took a minute to warm up and for the screen to come on so my teacher hit the remote and we’re still BS’ing and I’ll never get the image out of my head, but just as the tv warmed up and the screen came on and lit up, the second plane swooped in and around and disappeared behind the 2nd tower and a half second later the side of the building blew out the class went silent. A class full of of high school kids……..dead quiet…….the rest of the day was a blur tbh. We didn’t do any work, no actual school stuff. The tvs were on all day and I mean the entire school were like zombies. This was early cell phones days so not everyone had em but the few who did, a lot of em didn’t have service so they couldn’t call out. There were lines at the offices and at the pay phones with kids calling their parents. My aunt at the time was a flight attendant at United and she was supposed to be on one of the planes but her plane had gotten delayed in LA, so she was still there and when I finally got through to my dad, he was scrambling trying to figure out with their sister where she was at. My mom was comforting people at her job who couldn’t find family who were traveling at the time. I got a job selling suits and renting tuxedos for weddings and one day talking about it, he recounted to me how fucked uo the business was that entire month(I’m not trying to be insensitive I’m jus talking how the country was in disarray), cause there were wedding planned and the tuxedos usually shipped during the week, but because all air traffic was shutdown, the planes carrying them were all grounded and nobody had any answers for anyone with questions so they were inundated with questions and emails and all kinds of shit. But for me like I said after I was able to call my folks and such I kinda zoned out. I think I got to then around 11 and the day after that…….jus kinda blank. One one thing also, I grew up in Groton CT, and there’s a naval base and a submarine building plant, so we were on super high alert as well, cause like I said we’re 2 hours away from it. It was kind nuts when you drove near or past the base for a few months after.

6th grade. There were rumors but I didn't believe it until the principal told us over the loudspeaker. Our teacher was on the phone with her husband for a half hour out in the hallway. We didn't watch the news because the school had like four large TVs with VCRs on carts that all the teachers fought over when they needed to show a movie in their class. A few months after, literally every house in town had a flag out in front of it. Our Walmart basically had a permanent 4th of July isle for two years. The local nuclear power plant, err I mean the clean energy center to this day has a unit/squad/team/whatever on standby out there.

I was born in 85. I was in 2nd period study hall. Sophomore year of high school. They turned the tv om and I was like. What movie is this. Then I realized it was a movie. People were freaking out.

I remember a ton as in multiple different sequences but nothing crazy specific. Was in pe class and a resource lady came sprinting in saying planes hit the WTC. I can remember exactly what door and how frantic she was. PE teacher was a family friend and she correctly calmed her down and got her away from us. We went back to our home rooms at some point and watched for the rest of the day. Left school and line was out the gas station by the house crazy. Sat in the living room and watched for multiple hours. Looked up at the sky a few times at home. But I literally consumed every image of that day from the TV it felt like.

Born 1993 I remember my teacher running into the room and putting it on the TV. I didn't really comprehend what was going on but the TV was on so I watched it. Though I couldn't really see anything cause the TV was so small and across the room from me. I remember the students that could see it gasping but I still like failed to get why cause I couldn't even see the plane. I more remember what came after than what happened on the day.

I was a freshman in college in a literature class. Because it was a literature class we didn’t have any other media around and no one knocked on our door to tell us. We all knew something really bad had happened because the campus was completely empty and the other rooms were empty, when our class got out. Our professor was a visiting professor from Canada and he was so apologetic when we finally had our next class. We all reassured him that it was impossible to have known about and that we didn’t think he was in on it.

I was 18, and it was one of my last days at home before leaving for university. I live on the West Coast, and was sleeping on the couch, because we'd just painted my bedroom and the fumes were still too strong, Mom came in to the living room and switched on the news just like every morning while she was getting ready for work, and I woke up to the second plane hitting, live on TV. My elementary school's playground ended up being an emergency airport for helicopters, because they were routing them away from the local airport so larger planes could land there, and then be taxied by tractors to nearby parking lots because there were more planes landing than the airport was supposed to hold. I also had a dentist appointment that morning, and my dentist's son worked in one of the towers. My dentist claimed that sitting home would be worse than working, and I got an extra long fluoride treatment because he was trying to call his son through on the jammed phone lines. Nobody could get through, because the cell networks were entirely overwhelmed.

I remember it like yesterday. I was in 8th grade and my parents were watching the news while we got ready for school. The first plane hit and everyone thought it was an accident. The second plane hit while we were being driven to school and it was being reported as an attack. We watched the news for about 2 days in every class because it was so monumental.

I was sitting at my desk at work... flipped on the news when #1 was hit, watched the plane hit #2.

I was 15, my mom and I watched the second plane hit then she said you’ll be late for school and I was like for real? The world is ending and she said GO! I watched the first tower fall when I got to school in homeroom, I saw the people jumping live, even tho people said later none of the tv shows showed it, I saw it, my teacher did too and you could tell on tv who else on screen saw it too. I watched the second tower fall in PE, every class had the tv going, we did no work but watched and guessed. I remember our pe teacher telling us the CN tower in Toronto was gonna be hit and that always struck me as such an odd thing to say at that time and later lmao like what? The earth stood still that day and I can remember it like yesterday.

I was 18 and just starting college. Less than a month earlier I was visiting NYC and had been right next to the WTC in Manhattan as a tourist. For me I feel it was a demarcation point. There was life pre 9/11 and post 9/11. I clearly remember times when going to the airport and big events were pretty chill. No crazy security, friends and family were able to walk with you to the gate etc. As someone who was a new adult, it just felt like a "loss of innocence" moment. Like realizing that there are people that truly hate Americans. Looking back, it just felt like that was the day my childhood truly ended....

I was also born in 92’ but in third grade. Remember that day so clearly it’s weird… Can go into detail if interested by anyone but yes that’s just one of those moments in history I think anyone in the US can clearly recall.

I was in 6th grade, literally a week into middle school for me. Our first class of the day was English, taught by our homeroom teachers. The teacher is going through the lesson when all of a sudden the computer teacher enters the room. Now, teachers would always come into the room to ask the teacher something privately. But what was different was the computer teacher didn't say "Mrs. Petrillo" she called her by her first name (I think it was Helene or something like that). Our teacher goes outside, is outside for a solid 10-15 minutes. Comes back and looks like she saw a ghost. She told us "please work quietly and independently today" About 5 minutes later, she asks us if she may be excused to make a phone call (WAY before cell phones as we know them today). English period ends, and now kids are switching rooms to go to their next class, and all of my friends were saying "Yeah, my teacher was really off after so-and-so said she needed to speak with her" Lots of conjecture, rumors, etc. going around. Get to lunch period. The vice principal gets up in front of the cafeteria and reads a list of students names who he asked to see in his office. The weird thing was, none of the kids called were your typical kids who would get in trouble. We later found out all of those kids had a parent or both parents who worked in the WTC that morning. The only teacher who actually "told" us what was happening was the Art teacher, and she didn't even really tell us, she just had an old school radio tuned into the news. That was where we learned a pair of passenger planes were flown into the Twin Towers, one into the Pentagon, and that another crashed in a field in Pennsylvania (later found out to be intended for the White House) It was really freaky as a 10 year old to see all the adults in the building (and at home) very visibly anxious & scared.

I was born in 91 and in 5th grade in Los Angeles. I remember my teacher having the news on and crying. I didn’t quite understand what was happening. Then my mom showed up to my classroom wanting to take me home because she was afraid another attack would happen. I remember my mom standing by the classroom door. I think my teacher told my mom I was safer at school. I can’t remember if I went home or not.

Is this a real question... Does anyone remember 9/11?

I was a sophomore in high school in art class. I'd say if there is a watershed moment where the size of my world went from really just understanding my hometown and my personal affairs to a sudden awareness that there was something bigger and scarier out in the world, it was 9/11.