9/11 Remembered 25 Years After Terror Attacks.

25 years after the September 11 attacks killed nearly 3,000 people, Americans who lived through the day and those born after it are reckoning with how it still shapes their world.

• Nearly 3,000 people died at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pa.
• 125 people died at the Pentagon, plus 64 passengers and crew on American Airlines Flight 77.
• FAA air traffic manager Michael McCormick grounded all aircraft in his airspace at 9:05 a.m.
• One veteran who was born six months before 9/11 later served in Afghanistan during its final months.

Why it matters: The attacks reshaped nearly every American institution — aviation security, military policy, and media — and that legacy reaches people who weren't alive to see it happen.

• People born after 9/11 learned about the attacks through parents, teachers, YouTube, or documentaries — not lived experience.
• Educators who were children on 9/11 now teach students born more than two decades after the attacks.

How 137 sources split on this story

Where they split: Coverage divides on emphasis: whether the anniversary is primarily about personal grief and heroism, or about the political and global consequences that followed.

What’s next: Friday's 25th-anniversary ceremonies bring together survivors, families, and officials nationwide.

• Teachers are deciding how much graphic detail to share with students who have no frame of reference.
• How will schools and media adapt their 9/11 coverage as the last generation with direct memories ages out?
• What does the anniversary mean to people outside the United States, for whom the attacks' aftermath was also defining?