Sept. 11, 2001: Among the dead is Frasier writer-producer David Angell, who was on the American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston. Rachel Uchitel's fiancé, investment banker James Andrew O'Grady, is killed on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center's south tower.
Sept. 11, 2001: Elsewhere, a woman named Lara Lindstrom Clarke decides to jaywalk on her way to work. She is nearly hit by an SUV driven by Gwyneth Paltrow, an incident that causes Clarke to miss her morning train. Clarke works at the World Trade Center; she later credits Paltrow for saving her life. Paltrow responds by saying she is "deeply moved" by the tale. Later that week, the actress stands in line to donate blood.
Sept. 12, 2001: Productions shooting in New York shut down and lend a hand in the rescue and recovery efforts. Among the shows: the fictional cop drama Third Watch.
Sept. 13, 2001: Sony pulls teaser trailers and posters for the upcoming Tobey Maguire film Spider-Man. The teaser had shown the hero capturing a chopper full of bad guys by shooting a web between the Twin Towers.
Sept. 14, 2001: Families flock to see the sentimental, nonviolent Princess Diaries, starring a rising actress named Anne Hathaway. The film lingers in theaters two weeks longer than expected. The producer points to the Twin Towers attacks as a reason for the film's ongoing popularity.
Sept. 17, 2001: Robert De Niro's production company helps provide hot meals to rescue workers at Ground Zero. The actor later helps establish the Tribeca Film Festival as an effort to revitalize lower Manhattan.
Sept. 18, 2001: Ian "Gandalf" McKellen arrives at Ground Zero, elating aid workers there even though the first Lord of the Rings film has yet to be released: "A number of firefighters and policemen came right over to me and said, 'Wow, you're Gandalf!' I couldn't believe they knew about the film. They called their friends over to shake my hand. It was a wonderful feeling to know that I could put a smile on their faces."
Sept. 20, 2011: After more than a week's absence, Jon Stewart makes a highly anticipated return to The Daily Show. He follows a heartbreaking, eloquent speech with a special moment of zen: a gangly, live puppy. David Letterman, also back on the air, praises the courage of Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Sept. 21, 2001: George Clooney organizes a telethon to raise money for 9/11 victims. Jack Nicholson and Brad Pitt man the phones. America: A Tribute to Heroes airs on every major network and ends up raising more than $150 million.
Oct. 16, 2001: In only one day, Céline Dion teams with David Foster to cut a cover of "God Bless America." On Oct. 16, a benefit compilation of the same name hits the market, featuring the Dion track. It becomes the first charity album to reach the top since USA for Africa's We Are the World in 1985.
Nov. 4, 2001: The Primetime Emmys finally air, seven weeks after the original scheduled date. The show has been delayed twice, first by the Sept. 11 attacks, and then the war in Afghanistan. Ellen hosts. The West Wing wins best drama.
Nov. 7, 2001: South Park depicts an insane Bin Laden falling in love with a camel before being executed by a soldier in "Osama Bin Laden Has Farty Pants." This episode is nominated for a 2002 Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program, but loses to Futurama.
Dec. 5, 2001: George Lucas donates Darth Vader's helmet and the villainous Darth Maul's lightsaber, among other space war accoutrements, to help survivors of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Dec. 14, 2001: Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky opens. The finale features shots of the Twin Towers. Crowe reveals that Paramount had pressured him to remove the footage, but he declined. "I didn't understand why it was a given that they had to come out," Crowe said. "I never wavered. I just said 'No way.' "
May 3, 2002: Spider-Man arrives in theaters. The Twin Towers, which were scrubbed from teasers and posters, are still in the film, but only in passing, and not in any major action sequences. The movie clearly reflects post-9/11 sensibilities, however, particularly when one New Yorker helps Spider-Man escape a villain on the Brooklyn Bridge, shouting, "You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us!"
Oct. 2, 2002: Law & Order takes a first stab at the post-9/11 world with its season opener episode, "American Jihad." Sensitivity to racial profiling is already in full effect; the initial suspect in a murder is a Muslim extremist, but it turns out to be a homegrown nutcase.
May 17, 2004: Michael Moore releases Fahrenheit 9/11, a scathing documentary exposing media complacency and lack of leadership in the run-up to the Iraq invasion. Critics love it—Entertainment Weekly puts it on its end-of-the-decade best-of list—and so do moviegoers. The film ends up raking in more than $222 million, making it the highest-grossing documentary of all time.
July 21, 2004: Rescue Me premieres, starring Denis Leary as Tommy Gavin, an NYC firefighter grieving the loss of his cousin and his best friend, both members of his engine company, on 9/11. Tommy 's a devoted dad, but he's also a violent, self-destructive alcoholic with major character flaws, making him the sort of antihero (see: The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, House, Mad Men, et al.) that we began to see much more of on TV after the 9/11 attacks.
November 2005: Oops. Madonna sticks her foot in her mouth with a truther-esque statement about the Sept. 11 attacks: "9/11 was too ambiguous," she tells Rolling Stone. "You couldn't prove how the government was somehow in on the deal. There were too many arguments against it. You could say, 'Oh, that's just Michael Moore,' 'Oh, that's just hearsay.' New Orleans was undeniable irresponsibility." (Guess she never read the memo titled "Osama Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.")
Sept. 4, 2005: Showtime weighs in on our post-9/11 universe with Sleeper Cell. The jihad leader is played by an Israeli. The second season's terror cell includes a white European woman, a Latino-American man and, in a first for American television, a gay Muslim man.
April 28, 2006: United 93 debuts in theaters. Only two films, The Departed and The Queen, will appear on more top 10 lists for the year, and no film receives more No. 1 mentions.
Aug. 9, 2006: Oliver Stone releases his own movie take on the Sept. 11 disaster. World Trade Center gets a lot of attention, but ekes out a barely positive reception among critics.
March 29, 2007: Rosie O'Donnell offers truther comments that quickly become fodder for Fox News: "I do believe that it's the first time in history that fire has ever melted steel. I do believe that it defies physics for the World Trade Center Tower Seven, building seven, which collapsed in on itself. It is impossible for a building to fall the way it fell without explosives being involved. World Trade Center Seven. World Trade One and Two got hit by planes. Seven, miraculously, the first time in history, steel was melted by fire."
June 2007: Fictional terrorist hunter Jack Bauer becomes a lightning rod over the issue of torture, which is depicted often on the hit series 24. The military pressures the show it cut back on the torture scenes, saying they're affecting U.S. troops. A Canadian judge remarks, "Thankfully, security agencies in all our countries do not subscribe to the mantra ‘What would Jack Bauer do?' " (The series itself had debuted six years earlier, its premiere delayed due to the Sept. 11 attacks.)