10 iconic images from Sept. 11, 2001

At approximately 8:46 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, setting in motion a chain of events that defined the decade that followed and changed the course of U.S. history. Images captured throughout that day have become an indelible part of our memories. Ten of those images appear below. (Related images appear in this collection of a decade’s worth of front pages from the 9/11 attacks to the capture of Osama bin Laden.)

In this Sept. 11, 2001 file photo, United Airlines Flight 175 nears the South Tower of the World Trade, which it struck at 9:03 a.m. The World Trade Center attacks killed 2,753 people. (Carmen Taylor/AP)

Esquire has the fascinating backstory on this photo of a personfalling headfirst from the North Tower of New York’s World Trade Center. Yahoo’s Joe Pompeo returned to Ground Zero with photographer Richard Drew. (Richard Drew/AP)

People flee as the World Trade Center collapses, starting with the South Tower at 9:59 a.m. (Suzanne Plunkett/AP)

People near Ground Zero were coated with ash and debris near City Hall in lower Manhattan. (Amy Sancetta/AP)

At 10:28 a.m., the South Tower began collapsing. (Graham Morrison/AP)

The western side of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., was struck by American Airlines Flight 77. The Pentagon crash killed 184 people. (Tom Horan/AP)

Emergency workers look at the crater created when United Airlines Flight 93 crashed near Shanksville, Pa., on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001. Radar showed the San Francisco-bound Boeing 757 from Newark, N.J., had nearly reached Cleveland when it made a sharp left turn and headed back toward Pennsylvania, crashing in a grassy field edged by woods about 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. The crash killed 44 people, including the hijackers. (Keith Srakocic/AP)

Then-Chief of Staff Andy Card whispers into the ear of President George W. Bush to give him word of the plane crashes during a visit to the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Fla., Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001. (Doug Mills/AP)

New York Gov. George Pataki, left, New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, center, and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., tour the site of the World Trade Center disaster, Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2001. (Robert F. Bukaty/AP)

Thick smoke billows into the sky from the area behind the Statue of Liberty where the World Trade Center towers stood. (Daniel Hulshizer/AP)