Search results
The interactive timeline contains information about the events of September 11, 2001 at the World Trade Center in New York City, in a grassy field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon. View Timeline.
- Overview
- HISTORY Vault: 9/11 Documentaries
On September 11, 2001, 125 people inside the Pentagon were killed. The losses were devastating, but it could have been even worse.
At 9:37 a.m. on September 11, 2001, a 62-year-old Pentagon employee and retired Air Force communications specialist was sitting in traffic west of the Pentagon when a roaring jet engine passed so low overhead that it clipped the radio antenna of the car behind him.
The airplane, the hijacked American Airlines Flight 77, sliced through three light poles in the Pentagon parking lot before slamming into the first floor of the building and exploding in a fireball, instantly killing 125 people inside the Pentagon plus all 64 passengers onboard, including the five hijackers.
Stories From 9/11: Pentagon Employee Bruce Powers
While the act was horrific and all the losses on that day were devastating, structural damage analysis revealed that the death toll at the Pentagon could have been far worse, if not for some critical engineering decisions made 60 years earlier.
Construction of the Pentagon began, ironically enough, on September 11, 1941. While America had not yet entered World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt knew he needed a home base for impending military operations near the nation’s capital. Wartime urgency meant that the Pentagon was completed in record time—just 16 months using 15,000 construction workers.
Explore this collection of extraordinary documentary films about one of the most challenging days in U.S. history.
Watch Now
- Dave Roos
- 2 min
Aug 3, 2021 · At 09:37 the third plane destroyed the western face of the Pentagon - the giant headquarters of the US military just outside the nation's capital, Washington DC.
Apr 12, 2023 · The traumatic events of Sept. 11, 2001, changed the lives of everyone in America, especially those working for the Defense Department. Terrorists proved that the very symbol of our national...
What happened at the Pentagon that day and for days afterwards is a compelling story of trauma and tragedy as well as courage and caring and an instructive case study in coping with such...
Sep 2, 2020 · The attack on the Department of Defense headquarters in Arlington, Virginia killed 189 people in the building and on the plane (including the hijackers), and may have killed more if not for the...
Sep 10, 2021 · About 9:40, Alan Wallace had finished fixing the foam metering valve on the back of his firetruck parked in the Pentagon fire station and walked to the front of the station.
