September 11 attacks
Hijacked planes strike New York and the Pentagon
On 11 September 2001 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four airliners and flew them into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon. Nearly 3,000 people were killed. The attacks led the US to launch the War on Terror, including the war in Afghanistan.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 21st century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Whole world
- 1980 Smallpox declared eradicated — 21 years earlier
- 2008 Global financial crisis — 7 years later
Europe
- 1989 Invention of the World Wide Web — 12 years earlier
- 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall — 12 years earlier
- 1991–2001 Yugoslav Wars — 10 years earlier
- 1992 Maastricht Treaty — 9 years earlier
- 2002 Euro notes and coins — 1 year later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1980 Solidarity — 21 years earlier
- 1985–1991 Perestroika — 16 years earlier
- 1986 Chernobyl disaster — 15 years earlier
- 1989 Revolutions of 1989 — 12 years earlier
- 1991 Dissolution of the Soviet Union — 10 years earlier
Middle East
- 1979 Iranian Revolution — 22 years earlier
- 1980–1988 Iran–Iraq War — 21 years earlier
- 1990–1991 Gulf War — 11 years earlier
Africa
- 1983–1985 The Ethiopian famine — 18 years earlier
- 1994 End of apartheid in South Africa — 7 years earlier
Asia
- 1984 Bhopal disaster — 17 years earlier
- 1989 Tiananmen Square protests — 12 years earlier
- 1991 Eruption of Mount Pinatubo — 10 years earlier
- 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami — 3 years later
- 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami — 10 years later
Oceania
- 1992 The Mabo decision — 9 years earlier
Alive at the time
- Nelson Mandela (aged 83)
- Neil Armstrong (aged 71)
- Ronald Reagan (aged 90)
- Edmund Hillary (aged 82)
- Jimmy Carter (aged 77)
- Fidel Castro (aged 75)
- Elizabeth II (aged 75)
- Gabriel García Márquez (aged 74)
- Mikhail Gorbachev (aged 70)
- Boris Yeltsin (aged 70)