Looking back at 9/11: How the attacks shaped the last 25 years

The useful part

Twenty-five years after two hijacked planes brought down the World Trade Center in clouds of dust, Lower Manhattan is thriving. FiDi, with twice as many residents, and new bars and restaurants in a neighborhood that once closed up when Wall Street's trading day ended. At the Pentagon, more than one million people visit its outdoor memorial each year: 184 benches over pools of water, placed in the path of the third hijacked plane.

How it works

• Protests follow the Department of Homeland Security and its agency, ICE, created after Sept.
• Near the field where the fourth plane crashed outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the passengers are honored with a white marble wall of names.
• The motto is: "A common field one day, a field of honor forever." The country will come together on Friday over a shared national tragedy, but other changes remain controversial.
• went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and both conflicts defied quick military victories.
• Bush claimed expanded powers for the presidency, including military tribunals and harsh interrogation methods that critics call torture and that have thwarted prosecutors.

What to take from it

foreign policy, was killed in a raid on Pakistan, but the man accused of being the mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, remains imprisoned at the U.S.

Details worth keeping

The 9/11 Memorial & Museum draws about 9,000 people a day. 11, over the tactics used toward migrants and refugees. Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaida founder angry over U.S.