Museum Resources Explore 1993 WTC Bombing
More than eight years before September 11, 2001, another attack on the World Trade Center killed six people and injured more than 1,000.
On February 26, 1993, a small cell of terrorists with links to radical mosque and broader Islamist terror networks detonated about 1,200 pounds of explosives in a rental van parked in the underground garage. About 50,000 people evacuated from the World Trade Center that day, and the explosion created a five-story crater in the sub-grade levels of the towers, also undermining the floor of an adjoining hotel.
This month, we will honor the 22nd anniversary of the 1993 attack, and the 9/11 Memorial Museum offers a variety of resources to help you understand the event, place it in historical context and learn about its aftermath.
You can read more about the events of Feb. 26, 1993 on our website. You can also find information about the victims, listen to first-hand accounts, understand the aftermath and view relevant media coverage from 1993 to 2008.
The museum includes several artifacts relating to the 1993 bombing. The laptop computer of Ramzi Yousef, convicted for his involvement in the bombing, is currently in the Museum’s Historical Exhibition. It helps link the 1993 attack to 9/11.
By Jordan Friedman, 9/11 Memorial Research and Digital Projects Associate
Ellen Karas, who was working in the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, when al-Qaeda bombed the facility in 1998, shared her experiences during a talk at the 9/11 Memorial Museum on Feb. 6, 2015.
On the 9/11 Memorial plaza is the “Survivor Tree,” a callery pear tree that was discovered at Ground Zero in October 2001 severely damaged, with snapped roots and burned and broken branches.