September 11, 2026 marks twenty-five years since the attacks of September 11, 2001, when nearly 3,000 people from close to 90 countries died after hijacked aircraft struck the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The anniversary is being observed worldwide, with families, first responders, and communities gathering to remember the victims and reflect on how the events reshaped global approaches to safety, travel, and international relations. Because the victims came from so many nations, the date is treated as more than a national day of mourning in the United States.

A Global Loss, Not Only an American One

The attacks killed people from close to 90 countries, a fact that has shaped how the anniversary is observed outside the United States. Grief of this kind does not stop at a border, and the effects of the attacks were felt in countries far from the three crash sites. Travel, security, and immigration policies changed across the world in the years that followed.

Twenty-five years on, families in many countries continue to carry the loss daily, not only on the anniversary itself. Commemorations have become part of an annual routine for communities that lost citizens, residents, and visitors in the attacks.

Writing as a Way to Process Grief

Each year, large numbers of people turn to writing to process an event of this scale. Grief does not always fit into a conversation, and for many it needs a page. Personal blogs, online journals, and memorial sites have become a common way for people to record where they were on the morning of September 11, 2001, and what the day has meant to them since.

Online communities have produced thousands of such spaces over the past quarter century. They range from personal reflections to detailed histories of the memorials built after the attacks, and from formal tributes to quiet records of small moments that rarely appear in history books.

One example is The World Will Never Forget 9/11, a blog dedicated to keeping the memory of that day alive, covering the Memorial Plaza and the stories behind it. Another is Ephemeral New York, which has spent years documenting the small, personal memorials placed in corners of New York City, the kind that passers-by would not notice unless someone pointed them out.

Platforms and the Role of Online Memory

The persistence of these projects reflects how publishing platforms have been used to preserve public memory. WordPress.com, which hosts both blogs, states that its mission since its founding has been to give everyone, everywhere, a place to share their voice, whether the subject is a recipe blog, a small business seeking its first customers, or someone working through the hardest event to affect their city, family, or country.

According to the platform, this range of uses is what community looks like in practice: not one large monument, but thousands of small ones, maintained by people who decided their corner of the internet was worth using to remember.

Remembrance and Health Effects

The anniversary also draws attention to those who have died since the attacks from illnesses linked to that day. First responders, recovery workers, and residents exposed to dust and debris at the World Trade Center site have continued to report associated health conditions in the years since, and their losses are included in many commemorations.

The original commemoration message extended thoughts to everyone who lost someone on September 11, 2001, and to everyone who has lost someone since to illnesses tied to that day. It also thanked the first responders and ordinary people who ran toward danger instead of away from it.

What Comes Next

With the twenty-fifth anniversary now observed, attention is expected to turn to the annual commemorations that follow, including the continued reading of victims’ names at the September 11 memorial sites and ongoing documentation of memorials and personal accounts online. Health monitoring and support programs for those affected by exposure at the crash sites are also expected to continue. The blogs and archives built over the past twenty-five years are likely to remain available as long-term records of how individuals and communities have chosen to remember.