Wikipedia:Main Page history/2015 September 11

American Airlines Flight 77 was a daily morning transcontinental flight from Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia to Los Angeles International Airport. On September 11, 2001, the flight's Boeing 757 aircraft was hijacked by five men affiliated with al-Qaeda, and deliberately crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, near Washington, D.C., as part of the September 11 attacks. Less than 35 minutes into the flight, the hijackers stormed the cockpit, and Hani Hanjour, a trained pilot, took over the controls. The six crew members and the passengers were forced to the rear of the aircraft, where they relayed information on the hijacking. The hijackers crashed the aircraft into the western side of the Pentagon at 09:37 EDT, severely damaging the building and causing a large fire, and at 10:10 a portion of the Pentagon collapsed. All 64 people on board including the five hijackers were killed, as well as 125 people in the building. The victims of the attack are honored in the Pentagon Memorial adjacent to the Pentagon. (Full article...)

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September 11: Patriot Day in the United States

• 1775 – American Revolutionary War: Benedict Arnold's expedition departed from Cambridge, Massachusetts, as part of the invasion of Quebec.
• 1897 – Gaki Sherocho (pictured) was captured by the forces of Emperor of Ethiopia Menelik II, bringing an end to the Kingdom of Kaffa.
• 1945 – The Japanese-run camp at Batu Lintang, Sarawak, in Borneo was liberated by the Australian 9th Division, averting the planned massacre of its 2,000-plus Allied POWs and civilian internees by four days.
• 1965 – Indo-Pakistani War: Indian infantry captured the town of Burki near Lahore, Pakistan.
• 1992 – The eye of Hurricane Iniki, the most powerful hurricane to strike the state of Hawaii and the Hawaiian Islands in recorded history, passed directly over the island of Kauai, killing six people and causing around US$1.8 billion dollars in damage.

• More anniversaries:

  • September 10
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  • September 12

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Corals are marine invertebrates that typically live in compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Each polyp is a sac-like animal typically only a few millimeters in diameter and a few centimeters in length. Corals are major contributors to the physical structure of the coral reefs such as the Great Barrier Reef, where this photograph was taken. Coral reefs are under threat globally from ocean acidification and climate change.

Photograph: Toby Hudson

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