This Day In History

February 26th 1993: World Trade Center bombing in New York City

On this day in 1993, 19 years ago, a truck bomb was detonated below the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. The bomb was intended to knock the North Tower into the South Tower to destroy them both but failed, instead killing 6 (including a pregnant woman) and injuring over 1,000. These were the first casualties from foreign terrorists on US soil. The terrorist attack was planned by a group of conspirators and masterminded by Ramzi Yousef. In 1994, four men were convicted of carrying out the bombing and two more in 1997. The group were funded by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who would go on to be the principal architect behind the destruction of the Twin Towers on September 11th 2001. The memorial to the victims was destroyed on 9/11 but they are currently memorialised at the North Pool of the National 9/11 Memorial, opened in 2011. One of the eye-witnesses, Bruce Pomper, said of the 1993 attack:

“It felt like an airplane hit the building”