It was the deadliest terror attack in history, claiming 2,977 lives in hours.
So, on the 23rd anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attack, Gov. Ron DeSantis commemorated the fallen heroes murdered by al-Qaeda jihadists at a Palm Harbor ceremony Wednesday morning.
"We'll never forget the sacrifices that those folks made, many of them just regular people doing a regular, honest day's work, or happened to be on a plane, and yet they stood up and they were heroes," DeSantis said. "And for that, we will forever be grateful."
"What they did that day, across the board, represented the best of what humanity and America has to offer."
DeSantis highlighted Florida's commitment to educating and remembering the 9/11 atrocities through a 2023 law entitled "Heroes' Day". The law, which families of 9/11 victims helped devise, requires middle and high school students to receive at least 45 minutes of instruction on 9/11 to understand the "history and significance" of the terror attack.
"Most of the people in our country who are under the age of 30 were either not born yet or probably too young to have a very firm memory of what 9/11 entailed," DeSantis said, citing the impetus for the new state law. "I'm proud to have worked with the Florida Legislature to develop our school's 9/11 curriculum so that every year we will have instruction on the causes of 9/11, the destruction of 9/11, the heroic response that so many made to 9/11."
"I think this is something that's very, very meaningful," he added.
On September 11, Islamic extremists hijacked four commercial planes, one of which crashed into the World Trade Center's North Tower, and another of which slammed into the South Tower seventeen minutes later. The 147 total passengers and crew members on both planes were killed instantly, as were an undetermined number of World Trade Center employees.
At 9:37 a.m., 34 minutes after the South Tower was hit, American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, killing all 59 passengers and crew and 125 personnel in the building. At 9:58 a.m., the 40 passengers and crew aboard United Flight 93 began to fight back against the 4 hijackers, who were likely targeting either the U.S. Capitol or the White House. Four minutes later, passengers managed to steer the plane into an empty field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, tragically killing all aboard but heroically avoiding more catastrophe.
The attack was masterminded by al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and planned by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Bin Laden was killed in 2011 by SEAL Team 6 after evading capture for ten years. Mohammed, meanwhile, was captured by U.S. and Pakistani officers in Rawalpindi, Pakistan in March 2003, where he was waterboarded more than 180 times. He then spent several years in a classified CIA prison in Central Europe before he was transferred to the infamous Guantanamo Bay detention camp in 2006. In July 2024, after a series of bureaucratic red tape had to be cut through because the U.S. does not admit evidence linked to torture, Mohammed agreed to plead guilty to the terror attacks.
He is still in Guantanamo Bay.
