A single solitary moment in time. One hundred and two minutes overall, but focused on a single solitary moment. There are moments in time which change all of humankind. Sometimes, these are for the good, sometimes not. Sometimes we know that they are life changing at the time, sometimes we do not.
There is a 36-lecture course (www.greatcourses.com) that teaches about these moments. It is called The World Was Never the Same. The course states that to be such an event, three things must happen: the event in itself fundamentally changed history, the aftermath of the event changed history, and the event and its impact still resonate with us today.
The trial of Jesus, the landing of Christopher Columbus, and the falling of the world trade centers all changed history and the impacts are still resonating today.
Afterward, there were shocks of silence felt worldwide. In the days after the attacks on the trade centers, the Pentagon and Flight 93, we sat in front of the TV seeing the images again and again until they were ingrained in our brains. The days at work were almost spent in a zombie state. We were doing our jobs, but not really sure what was to be next. The silence settled as no more live victims were to be found at ground zero. Tireless teams of dogs and their handlers searched, but the silence was oppressive. Of the 95 dogs that searched, 13 are still alive today. I think the dogs felt the silence, too.
There were four hijacked planes. Two headed to the world trade centers, one to the Pentagon, and the fourth was headed to the Capitol or White House. That day, there were a total of 2, 996 deaths including the 19 hijackers and the 2,977 victims. Thoughts everywhere were for those who left home that day to never return. Almost everyone knew someone who died that day or at least knew someone who knew someone personally. For me, it was a young Army Captain who went on to put in 25 years and died at the Pentagon that day.