They lost loved ones on 9/11. Hear the heart-wrenching voicemails they'd leave for them.

The children of parents who died on 9/11 share their stories in remembrance

Many children of 9/11 victims were too young to remember their parents who died. They’ve grown up living with the tension between having a personal connection to the day but few, if any memories. Read some of their stories.

Watch New York City's Tribute in Light to the victims of 9/11

Tribute in Light is a commemorative public art installation first presented six months after 9/11 and then every year thereafter, from dusk to dawn, on the night of September 11. It has become an iconic symbol that both honors those killed and...

Watch Springsteen open a somber 9/11 tribute

“America: A Tribute to Heroes” was a fundraising telethon on Sept. 21, 2001, and simulcast across the four major networks. Springsteen opened the program with “My City of Ruins,” a song originally written about Asbury Park that took on new significance after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Smithsonian artifacts that tell the story of 9/11 (w/photos)

Hundreds of objects linked to the attacks, from office supplies recovered at the World Trade Center to firefighters’ gear used at the Pentagon to fragments pulled from the crash site of Flight 93, reside in the national collection. Read about 31 Smithsonian artifacts that help unravel the complex story of 9/11 and its aftermath.

Read what actions helped support grieving individuals during times of anguish

Concrete acts of kindness that buoyed New York Times readers after the deaths of loved ones varied widely. Examples include: friends sending emojis requiring no reply, coming over without asking to clean a grieving individual's bathroom, feeding them, taking them for periodic outdoor walks, and simply sitting with them so they weren't alone. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

USA Today asked readers about their grief—and received more than 700 responses

The submissions included one moving story of two women whose sons died by drug overdose. The duo wrote that they found each other in a support group and decided to navigate their respective difficult situations by starting a podcast together called "Two Moms with Two Dead Kids," which focused on what life was like in the years following the deaths of their children.

Hear firsthand stories from Americans who lived through the 1918 flu pandemic

This video shares personal accounts from survivors of the 1918 influenza epidemic, capturing memories of sickness, loss, and resilience. Their voices offer a glimpse into how ordinary people experienced one of history’s deadliest pandemics.

9 billion voice notes are sent every day

The recorded voice note has come to replace a regular phone call conversation for some. Observers suggest the monological nature of the voice note corrodes the benefits of real-life interactions.

A writer's reflection on 'The Falling Man' - the man who fell from the World Trade Center

In an excerpt from his ‘Press Box’ interview with Bryan Curtis, writer Tom Junod discusses his Esquire story about the image of a man who fell or jumped from the North Tower on Sept. 11, 2001.

The horror hotlines of the 1990s

Before the internet, 900-number hotlines were the way to retrieve instant information over the phone, whether for weather reports, movie information, or spooky horror stories. Callers could dial the number and hear ghost stories, experience interactive horrors, and more. This article reminisces about this extinct technology and how it paved the way for the internet.

Listen to found cassette tapes from around the world

A growing catalog collects tapes discovered in Barcelona, New York, and other locations, featuring digitized audio for easy listening alongside any accompanying visuals or notes. Some audio fragments include voice memos and mixtapes as well.

At 3 pm on Memorial Day, Americans are asked to pause for one minute of silence

President Bill Clinton first called for the National Moment of Remembrance in 1999, and Congress made it law in 2000. The time was chosen because most Americans are in the middle of holiday activities.

One Fair Wage is a national organization advocating for eliminating subminimum wages

Saru Jayaraman has run One Fair Wage since 2020, an offshoot of a 9/11 relief organization for displaced workers and victims’ families she helped start shortly after the attacks. Seventy-three employees of the World Trade Center’s top-floor restaurant were killed on September 11.

Go behind the scenes of a 911 dispatch center

This video follows a dispatcher at a Colorado communications center serving over 1,600 square miles across four counties, showing the constant communication and relentless pace of a 24-hour shift on the other end of your emergency call.

The Bomb-proof, Cold War-era New York data center inspiring spy movies

At 33 Thomas Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, a 45-story concrete tower with no windows stands imperiously over the city. Inside, 18 floors of telecommunications technology have hummed for decades. The building's purpose—to protect US comms from nuclear fallout—and its design have played into spy movie plotlines. Dive into the building's curious role in pop culture with this long read.

The 'Miracle on the Hudson' showed heroism in the air and changed social media forever

On Jan. 15, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 lost both engines after hitting birds and was safely landed in the Hudson River. The event was a turning point for Twitter, as a photo and a tweet quickly spread—marking Twitter's rise as a real-time news source.

Find decades of Hanukkah stories to listen to

For over 30 years, National Public Radio has broadcast its Hanukkah Lights series, a collection of original fiction that relates to the holiday. Here, you’ll find a repository of listeners’ favorite past tales, going back decades.

Hear how the first moon landing was saved

This podcast series explores Apollo 11 through firsthand stories from the engineers, mission controllers, and astronauts who made the moon landing possible, culminating in 13 minutes of NASA archive audio leading up to the landing.

What Kitty Hawk looks like today, including a 60-foot memorial to the brothers

This short video surveys the flat, empty expanse near Kill Devil Hills in North Carolina’s barrier islands, highlighting the area’s attractive conditions for early flight. Also shown are the stone monument to the Wright’s and replica wooden shacks like the ones they lived in those fateful years.

'Coral Castle,' Florida's self-built monument to a lost valentine

Latvian Ed Leedskalnin moved to the US shortly after his teenage fiancée ditched him. He quickly began work building a romantic tribute to this tragic episode via massive oolitic limestone. Working mostly at night, the Latvian cultivated an air of mystique as bystanders grew curious over his methods. Today, the castle stands as a bittersweet monument to unrequited love.

Hear about the violent week after Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination

This podcast from The Atlantic revisits the seven days after Dr. King was killed in 1968, when widespread violent unrest swept the country and reshaped the direction and legacy of the Civil Rights movement.

Paperwork errors cost families millions in life-insurance payouts

This podcast episode reveals how human missteps by employers and insurance providers caused hundreds of families who paid life-insurance premiums to be denied millions of dollars in death benefits. A Wall Street Journal reporter breaks down how flaws in the system made this happen.

Hear today's call to prayer and special 'duas' sung by the muezzin

The call to prayer is a distinctive sound marking the start and end of the fast each day, playing a key cultural role in the rhythms of the period. This archive collects "duas" (or supplications, or a prayerful petition) for each day in the year, with timely prayers and recitations sung by the muezzin, or cantor, in gorgeously intricate melodic intervals.

Wish you could experience life on the Western Front of WWI?

Virtual reality offers a new perspective on World War I in this nearly 14-minute video. National WWI Museum and Memorial Public Program Specialist James Taub demonstrates the War Remains VR experience side by side with what he sees through the headset. A grim and detailed simulation of trench warfare combined with Taub's observations and insights.

Poems and stories inscribed on the walls of a US immigration island

What Ellis Island was to the East Coast, Angel Island was to the West. Just off the coast of San Francisco, this processing center became a detention center for those targeted by exclusionary immigration laws. Click here to read some of the stories left by the detained.

In 2009, the nation was gripped by the story of a missing young boy who was believed to be floating over Colorado in a homemade balloon, until it was revealed that he was at home the whole time.

Some researchers have labeled nomophobia, the fear of being without your phone, as 'the phobia of the 21st century.'

The tragic Pulitzer Prize-winning image 'The Vulture and the Little Girl' (1993) generated controversy, raised concerns about ethics in photography, and eventually led to the photographer's death.

Cultural norms about how to handle the bodies of loved ones in communities in West Africa have hampered Ebola responses.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

20,000 letters to the advice columnist 'Dear Abby' provide insight into prevailing sex, religion, and LGBTQ fears, anxieties, and concerns from the 1950s onward.

Hear about the 250-year history of the United States Postal Service, complete with some of its strangest deliveries, important innovations, and the figures that made it an American institution.

Fish populations in the Great Barrier Reef have increased after installing waterproof speakers on the ocean floor that played recordings of sounds from healthy coral reefs.

In 1915, workers recovered a submarine-like vessel from the Chicago River, prompting fears of German espionage

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

Apollo astronauts left items in the moon's 'toss zone,' including golf balls, family photos, and bags of human waste, to make room for lunar rocks.

Explore the archaeological treasures of Pompeii, the city buried under volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE.

11 people died from firework injuries in the US in 2024.

After NASA's Voyager 1 captured Earth as a single pixel as it left the solar system in 1990, astronomer Carl Sagan used the image to reflect on humanity's fragility and the responsibility to protect 'the only world we've ever known.'

The 19th-century painters of the Hudson River School were among the first American romantics, with portraits that displayed the natural beauty of the young country.

Crows are believed to have intelligence on par with a seven-year-old child and demonstrate complex behaviors, from problem-solving with tools to recognizing human faces.

Watch contemporary footage covering the US-backed Shah of Iran fleeing the country in the face of the 1979 Iranian Revolution

Power lines are dotted with large, brightly colored balls to improve the visibility of these thin wires to helicopters and small planes and help prevent potential crashes.

Recent research found that the brain doesn't seem to massively rewire following amputation—upending earlier beliefs about the cause of phantom limb pain.

The Ramones' 'Pet Sematary,' the theme song for the Stephen King novel of the same name, was written while the band was admiring the writer's collection of horror memorabilia.

Watch a 1934 short film starring jazz legend Cab Calloway, a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance's music scene

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

Listen to an in-depth conversation on the links between Parkinson's disease and herbicide exposure and the challenging pace of scientific investigation.

The most expensive ad of all time was for Chanel No. 5 perfume and cost roughly $33M to produce in 2004—about $57M in today's dollars.