// BBC WORLD NEWS — MONDO
Gen Zs recall first learning of 'deeply harrowing, terrifying' 9/11
Most Americans remember exactly what they were doing and how they felt the day four airplanes were hijacked and crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania.
But now, 25 years on from the 11 September 2001 attacks, there is a new generation, too young to remember the day that permanently altered much of American life.
Members of Generation Z, born between 1997 and 2012, were told - well after the fact - about the event that undoubtedly reshaped their futures.
They carry distinct memories not from the day itself, but from the moment years later that they learned about the attacks.
An adult and child laying flowers at the 9/11 Memorial on the 25th anniversary of the attacks
Avery Black, 20, a journalism student at the University of South Carolina, remembers hearing about 9/11 for the first time in elementary school, then going home and asking her mother about it, she told the BBC.
"She just started telling me where she was the day it happened, and just broke down in tears, explaining to me about all the firefighters that went in and never came out," Black recalled.
As a child, Black didn't quite grasp the day's gravity, but for her, certain details still stand out.
She remembers, most distinctly, the "falling man" – a famous image of a man plummeting, upside down, from the North Tower. A Dallas, Texas native, she also recalls teachers showing the video of then-President George W. Bush first learning about the attacks at an elementary school event.
For Annie Erickson, 26, who grew up in North Carolina, personal anecdotes, more than school or reports, created her first memories of 9/11.