On September 11, 2001, at 8:45 a.m. on a clear Tuesday morning, an American Airlines Boeing 767 loaded with 20,000 gallons of jet fuel crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. The impact left a gaping, burning hole near the 80th floor of the 110-story skyscraper, instantly killing hundreds of people and trapping hundreds more in higher floors. As the evacuation of the tower and its twin got underway, television cameras broadcasted live images of what initially appeared to be a freak accident. Then, 18 minutes after the first plane hit, a second Boeing 767–United Airlines Flight 175–appeared out of the sky, turned sharply toward the World Trade Center and sliced into the south tower near the 60th floor. The collision caused a massive explosion that showered burning debris over surrounding buildings and the streets below. America was under attack.

A decade later, we pay tribute to the resilience of ordinary people in the face of appalling destruction. We remember the dead and, with them, the survivors, the firemen and the police, the nurses and the doctors and the spontaneous, instinctive volunteers, the countless acts of courage and kindness.

President Obama laid a wreath of white flowers outside the Pentagon as "Amazing Grace" was played during the afternoon, before he and first lady Michelle Obama spoke with family members of victims.

Earlier, The President read a Psalm at the morning ceremony at the World Trade Center, and then travelled to a wreath-laying ceremony in Shanksville at noon, where he and the first lady shook hands and spoke with many members of the crowd gathered there.

In Virginia, family members and first responders held a moment of silence with Vice President Joe Biden to honor the time when American Airlines flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon.

VP Biden said that what took place after the plane struck the Pentagon "was far more remarkable than the damage inflicted in the building behind me" as Pentagon employees and first responders risked their lives to help those trapped by the plane's impact.

To applause, he declared, "I can say without fear of contradiction or being accused of exaggeration, the 9/11 generation ranks among the greatest our nation has ever produced. And it was born, it was born, it was born right here on 9/11."

In New York, the annual reading of the nearly 3,000 names was punctuated this year by family members' visits to the Memorial Fountains at the newly completed Memorial Plaza, on which the names of those killed are etched in bronze.

One woman threw her arms on the name of her loved one, put her head down and sobbed.

Many took paper and pencil and making an etching, as one might at a graveyard and frequently is to be seen at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington D.C.

This past spring, history—in the shape of a Navy SEAL team—seemed to provide the era with some closing punctuation. The death of bin Laden.