Millions of tourists visit the 9/11 Memorial in New York every year

Complex, built in place of the Twin Towers destroyed in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, has become a center of attraction for visitors

NEW YORK – Millions of people visit the 9/11 Memorial every year since it opened in 2014.

The complex, built in place of the Twin Towers destroyed in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York, has become a center of attraction for visitors from all over the world.

Almost 3,000 people lost their lives and thousands more were injured.

Some 400,000 more people were exposed to the carcinogenic dust cloud, especially firefighters and police officers who worked tirelessly to save as many survivors as possible.

On that day 22 years ago, Americans across the country were in shock, disbelief, horror, and anger.

For many, the early morning news that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center was a blow they had never experienced in their lives.

The attack on American soil was the first since Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor 60 years earlier.

But then came the news that another passenger plane had crashed into a second World Trade Center skyscraper.

And then another plane hit the Pentagon. The attacks occurred in rapid succession, and the nation panicked.

Just minutes later, passengers on United Airlines Flight 93 rushed to the cockpit of their plane to wrest control of the plane from the al-Qaeda hijackers.

About five minutes later, the plane jackknifed and crashed into an empty field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing everyone on board.

In New York City, hundreds jumped or plunged to their deaths from the North Tower, the first World Trade Center building to be attacked.

The chaos was compounded when the two World Trade Center towers in lower Manhattan collapsed.