Garrett M. Graff at National Geographic:
On September 11, 2001, 17 minutes was the length of time from when American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, at , to when United Airlines Flight 175 entered the right-hand side of millions of TV screens, at , and plowed into the South Tower at nearly 600 miles an hour.
I have spent a decade studying and researching 9/11. I’ve written a book and countless articles, produced a podcast series, and given hundreds of talks on how the events of that day permanently altered the course of this country. And along the way, I have become convinced that in those 17 minutes—16 minutes and 31 seconds, to be precise—we can glimpse one America ending and a new one beginning. We can see the disappearance of the innocent optimism that defined our society in the postwar 20th century, of a nation that didn’t yet know what it felt like to be under attack or how to wake up each day facing the possibility of one.
More here.
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