''102 Minutes That Changed America'' is a 102-minute American

television special A television special (often TV special, or rarely television spectacular) is a standalone television show which may also temporarily interrupt episodic programming normally scheduled for a given time slot. Some specials provide a full range of ent ...

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

that was produced by the

History History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

channel and premiered commercial-free on Thursday, September 11, 2008, marking the seventh anniversary of the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

. Its name comes from the timespan from the first impact of

American Airlines Flight 11 American Airlines Flight 11 was a domestic passenger flight that was hijacked by five al-Qaeda terrorists on September 11, 2001 as part of the September 11 attacks. Lead hijacker Mohamed Atta deliberately crashed the plane into the North Tower ...

and the

collapse of the World Trade Center The collapse of the World Trade Center occurred during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, after the Twin Towers were struck by two hijacked commercial airliners. One World Trade Center (WTC 1, or the North Tower) was hit at 8:46 ...

. The film depicts, in virtually

real time Real-time or real time describes various operations in computing or other processes that must guarantee response times within a specified time (deadline), usually a relatively short time. A real-time process is generally one that happens in defined ...

, the New York-based events of the attacks primarily using raw

footage In filmmaking and video production, footage is raw, unedited material as originally filmed by a movie camera or recorded by a ( often special) video camera, which typically must be edited to create a motion picture, video clip, television show or ...

from mostly amateur

citizen journalists Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection". Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...

, focusing mainly on the reactions of New York inhabitants during the incident. The documentary is accompanied by an 18-minute documentary short called ''I-Witness to 9/11'', which features interviews with nine firsthand eyewitnesses who captured the footage on camera. According to this film, most of the archival footage was in possession of the U.S. government but was not released to

until years after 9/11. The documentary film attracted 5.2 million viewers. The program aired on

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

in the UK,

France 3 France 3 () is a French free-to-air public television channel and part of the France Télévisions group, which also includes France 2, France 4, France 5 and France Info. It is made up of a network of regional television services providing ...

in France, History Channel in Brazil on 7 September 2009,

SBS6 SBS6 is a Dutch free-to-cable commercial TV channel and is a part of Talpa TV, formerly known as SBS Broadcasting B.V. and now owned by Talpa Network. Other channels of the group in the Netherlands are Net5, Veronica, and SBS9. History SBS st ...

, in the Netherlands on 9 September 2009 and on

ZDF ZDF (, short for Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen; ; "Second German Television") is a German public-service television broadcaster based in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate. It is run as an independent nonprofit institution, which was founded by all fe ...

in 2009 and 2010. The 7 September 2021 was aired in Catalonia on

TV3 Channel 3 or TV 3 may refer to: Television *Canal 3 (Burkina Faso), a commercial television channel in Burkina Faso *Canal 3 (Guatemala), a commercial television channel in Guatemala *Channel 3 (Algeria), a public Algerian TV channel owned by EPTV ...

's program '' Sense ficció''. In this channel, the film featured a high audience with 345,000 viewers and 18.4% share, thus achieving the program's best record since 18 May 2021.

A&E Television Networks A&E Networks (stylized as A+E NETWORKS) is an American multinational broadcasting company that is a 50–50 joint venture between Hearst Communications and The Walt Disney Company through its General Entertainment Content division. The company o ...

, parent company of History, aired it across all of their cable networks on September 11, 2011, at 8:46 a.m. EDT, the exact time

crashed into

1 World Trade Center One World Trade Center (also known as One World Trade, One WTC, and formerly Freedom Tower) is the main building of the rebuilt World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Designed by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merr ...

ten years earlier.

Awards and nominations

2009 Emmy Awards

In 2009, the documentary won three

Primetime Emmy Awards The Primetime Emmy Awards, or Primetime Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the American television industry. Bestowed by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS), the Primetime ...

, out of four nominations, for the following categories: * Outstanding Nonfiction Special * Outstanding Sound Editing for Nonfiction Programming (Single or Multi-Camera) * Outstanding Sound Mixing for Nonfiction Programming * Outstanding Picture Editing for Nonfiction Programming (nomination)

References

External links

DVD at History.com Shop
*
Review at The Third Estate
{{History films 2008 television films 2008 films History (American TV channel) original programming Documentary films about the September 11 attacks American documentary television films 2008 documentary films Television series about the history of the United States Films about high-rise fires Primetime Emmy Award-winning broadcasts 2000s English-language films 2000s American films

Awards and nominations

2009 Emmy Awards

See also

References

External links